{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_45427/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_45427","id":"gutenberg_45427","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45427","summary":null,"tags":["Buchanan, George, 1506-1582","Category: Biographies","Category: History - European","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Famous Scots Series"],"text":"Transcriber\u2019s Notes\n\n\nIrregular or archaic spelling and irregular hyphenation are retained.\nMinor changes to punctuation, in the index and in section headings,\nhave been made without comment.\n\nFootnotes have been moved to the end of the book.\n\nIn this utf-8 text version of the e-book, italic typeface is\nrepresented by _underscores_; small caps typeface by UPPER CASE.\n\nOther notes follow the text.\n\n\n\n\n  GEORGE BUCHANAN\n\n\n\n\n  FAMOUS SCOTS SERIES\n\n\n_The following Volumes are now ready:--_\n\n    THOMAS CARLYLE. By HECTOR C. MACPHERSON.\n    ALLAN RAMSAY. By OLIPHANT SMEATON.\n    HUGH MILLER. By W. KEITH LEASK.\n    JOHN KNOX. By A. TAYLOR INNES.\n    ROBERT BURNS. By GABRIEL SETOUN.\n    THE BALLADISTS. By JOHN GEDDIE.\n    RICHARD CAMERON. By Professor HERKLESS.\n    SIR JAMES Y. SIMPSON. By EVE BLANTYRE SIMPSON.\n    THOMAS CHALMERS. By Professor W. GARDEN BLAIKIE.\n    JAMES BOSWELL. By W. KEITH LEASK.\n    TOBIAS SMOLLETT. By OLIPHANT SMEATON.\n    FLETCHER OF SALTOUN. By G. W. T. OMOND.\n    THE BLACKWOOD GROUP. By Sir GEORGE DOUGLAS.\n    NORMAN MACLEOD. By JOHN WELLWOOD.\n    SIR WALTER SCOTT. By Professor SAINTSBURY.\n    KIRKCALDY OF GRANGE. By LOUIS A. BARB\u00c9.\n    ROBERT FERGUSSON. By A. B. GROSART.\n    JAMES THOMSON. By WILLIAM BAYNE.\n    MUNGO PARK. By T. BANKS MACLACHLAN.\n    DAVID HUME. By Professor CALDERWOOD.\n    WILLIAM DUNBAR. By OLIPHANT SMEATON.\n    SIR WILLIAM WALLACE. By Professor MURISON.\n    ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. By MARGARET MOYES BLACK.\n    THOMAS REID. By Professor CAMPBELL FRASER.\n    POLLOK AND AYTOUN. By ROSALINE MASSON.\n    ADAM SMITH. By HECTOR C. MACPHERSON.\n    ANDREW MELVILLE. By WILLIAM MORISON.\n    JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER. By E. S. HALDANE.\n    KING ROBERT THE BRUCE. By A. F. MURISON.\n    JAMES HOGG. By Sir GEORGE DOUGLAS.\n    THOMAS CAMPBELL. By J. CUTHBERT HADDEN.\n    GEORGE BUCHANAN. By ROBERT WALLACE. Completed by J. CAMPBELL SMITH.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n  GEORGE BUCHANAN\n\n  BY ROBERT WALLACE\n  COMPLETED BY J CAMPBELL SMITH\n\n  FAMOUS SCOTS SERIES\n\n  PUBLISHED BY\n  OLIPHANT ANDERSON & FERRIER\n  EDINBURGH AND LONDON\n\n\n\n\nThe designs and ornaments of this volume are by Mr. Joseph Brown, and\nthe printing from the press of Messrs. T. and A. Constable, Edinburgh.\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nThe concluding chapter of the book I intended to serve the purpose of\nprologue and epilogue, but on reflection I find that readers both in\nand out of Scotland may desire to be told a little more about Robert\nWallace, M.A., D.D., and M.P., a collocation of titles of honour, so\nfar as I know, unexampled. He was a minister of the Church of Scotland\nfrom the summer of 1857 to the autumn of 1876; was in succession the\nminister of Newton-on-Ayr, of Trinity College Church, Edinburgh,\nand of Old Greyfriars\u2019, Edinburgh, in which last he succeeded Dr.\nRobert Lee, as also in the leadership of the Liberal Party of the\nChurch of Scotland. The degree of D.D. was conferred upon him by the\nUniversity of Glasgow, pretty much, it was believed, through the\ninfluence of Dr. Caird, the most eloquent preacher and one of the most\nprofound theologians of our day. After Dr. Wallace became editor of\nthe _Scotsman_ he resigned his chair of Church History, his church,\nand even his licence to preach, and he left in abeyance the title of\nD.D., and became in his time, as a barrister-at-law, plain Mr. Robert\nWallace. But the degree of a university is, I believe, indelible, and\nhe will always be Dr. Wallace to me. His degree of M.A., like mine, was\nconferred by the University of St. Andrews in April 1853 after four\nyears\u2019 study, during which we attended simultaneously every Humanity\nclass. He was first in every literary class, and by far the best\nclassical scholar of my day. Dr. Alexander, the venerable professor of\nGreek, who had taught for thirty years, pronounced him the best student\nhe had ever taught.\n\nHis splendid classical attainments, the erudition necessary to the\nchair of Church History, his extensive and distinguished practice as a\ndebating gladiator in Church Courts, especially the General Assembly,\nperhaps even his experience in the solid, stolid, non-mercurial House\nof Commons, all fitted him, as few men have been fit, to do justice to\nthe life, labours, and supreme European culture of George Buchanan.\n\nTo equal fitness I do not pretend. To the best of my ability I have\ntried to complete the unfinished task of my friend, with whom I at\nintervals interchanged ideas since the beginning of our college\ncareer in October 1849. I am not sure he would have agreed with all I\nsay in the last chapter. For the views expressed therein I alone am\nresponsible.\n\nFrom one error in fact and a doubtful assumption as to Buchanan\u2019s\nrelation to Montaigne, the \u2018representative\u2019 sceptic, I have been\nsaved by Dr. P. Hume Brown, the author of the best life of Buchanan,\nwhose knowledge of the history of Buchanan and his contemporaries is\nprobably unrivalled. He read the proof-sheets, and for his friendly,\ndisinterested attention Dr. Wallace\u2019s representatives and I are greatly\nobliged to him, as all readers ought to be, for they have the assurance\nthat the most enlightened eye on the subject of Buchanan examined what\nthey are expected to believe.\n\n                                    J. CAMPBELL SMITH.\n\n  DUNDEE, _December 1899_.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n      CHAPTER I\n                                               PAGE\n  PRELIMINARY AND GENERAL                        9\n\n\n      CHAPTER II\n  CHARACTERISTICS                               26\n\n\n      CHAPTER III\n  CHARACTERISTICS (_continued_)                 48\n\n\n      CHAPTER IV\n  FURTHER CHARACTERISTICS                       66\n\n\n      CHAPTER V\n  BUCHANAN AND CALVINISM                        89\n\n\n      CHAPTER VI\n  BIOGRAPHICAL FACTS                           111\n\n\n  EPILOGISTIC                                  138\n\n\n  INDEX                                        147\n\n\n\n\nGEORGE BUCHANAN\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nPRELIMINARY AND GENERAL\n\n\nOn the 21st July 1683, Lord William Russell was beheaded in Lincoln\u2019s\nInn Fields, because Charles II., F.D., who never said a foolish\nthing, and never did a wise one, thought it would help to keep alive\nthe Stuart doctrine of the Divine right of kings. On the same day,\nthe political writings of George Buchanan and one John Milton were,\nby decree of the learned and loyal University of Oxford, publicly\nburned in front of their Schools by the common hangman, because they\nwere regarded as the most formidable and dangerous defences of the\nprinciples on account of which it had been considered judicious to kill\nLord William Russell, and perhaps also in token that if Buchanan and\nMilton had not been dead they might have been burned too, along with\ntheir books. It is comforting to reflect that this same decree was\nsubsequently burned with the same publicity--and by the same common\nhangman, one would hope.\n\nAt the time, however, the Oxford transaction, in view of the\nsycophancy, obscurantism, and other degrading characteristics of the\nthen University, was the highest compliment that could have been paid\nto Buchanan and Milton, and especially to Buchanan. For Buchanan was\nsubstantially a century before Milton, who, like the rest of the\nRoundheads, was inspired by Buchanan\u2019s principles and greatly assisted\nby his arguments. Dryden, indeed, declared that Milton stole his\n_Defence of the People of England_ from Buchanan\u2019s _De Jure Regni apud\nScotos_; but that was only \u2018Glorious John\u2019s\u2019 inglorious way of making\nhimself controversially disagreeable. Milton put his own genius and\nexperience into Buchanan\u2019s idea, and produced an essentially original\nwork. But what although he had not? Milton was fighting a great battle,\nand was entitled, or rather bound, to use the best weapons, wherever he\ncould get them. The anti-plagiarising spirit is often a mere form of\nvanity. If the Royal Artillery declined to plagiarise from Armstrong\nand Krupp, and insisted on making all their ammunition themselves, I\nshould tremble for the defence of the country. Not the less, however,\ndoes Buchanan amply merit the title of \u2018Father of Liberalism,\u2019 since\nthe principles which he successfully floated in unpropitious times\nundoubtedly produced the two great English, the American, and the first\nFrench Revolutions, with all their continuations and consequences.\n\nLet it be noted that the distinction which Buchanan achieved in\nthis matter was not merely that of the political philosopher and\nthinker. The publication of the _De Jure_, at the time and under\nthe circumstances in which it appeared, was a blow of the utmost\nconsequence, delivered in the great politico-theological struggle with\nwhich he was contemporary. It was like one of Knox\u2019s famous sermons,\nwhich were not mere religious meditations, but political events of\nthe most immense influence, present and future. The Reformation,\nparticularly in Scotland, was, in its inception and establishment, a\npolitical, quite as much as a religious revolution, of which Buchanan\nwas not simply an interested but recluse critic and dilettante\nspectator. He thought profoundly about what he saw going on, but he\nalso threw his thoughts into the fight that was raging round him, with\nbombshell results, and the effects of what he thought and did upon the\nfortunes of the great struggle for popular liberty against usurping\nascendency--a struggle not even yet concluded--prove him to have\npossessed qualities of far-sightedness and statesmanship of the highest\norder.\n\nIn a totally different walk of life he achieved almost equal\ndistinction. He was a great scholar-poet and general writer; and when,\nin this connection, I use the words \u2018almost equal,\u2019 I am thinking\nof the question whether the director of human affairs or the artist\nin words and ideas of beauty or human interest is the greater. Of\ncourse, comparison of things or people generically distinct is scarcely\npossible. You can hardly compare a snuff-box and a policeman. But it\nseems less difficult to ask whether C\u00e6sar or Shakespeare, Alfred the\nGreat or Alfred Tennyson, was the greater man. However that may be,\nthere can be no doubt that Buchanan rose to very great eminence as an\nintellectual artist, both in prose and verse. He enjoyed an unsurpassed\nEuropean reputation among the Renaissance magnates of his day. Henri\nEstienne, for instance,--Buchanan\u2019s Stephanus, our Stephens--said\nthat he was _poetarum nostri s\u00e6culi facile princeps_, meaning thereby\n\u2018easily the first poet of our time,\u2019 which is sufficiently strong. Of\ncourse it may be said that Estienne or Stephens was only a printer.\nBut there are printers _and_ printers, and Stephanus belonged to the\nsecond class. Anybody who knows anything about the literary history of\nthe time will understand that such praise from Estienne implied a very\ngreat deal.\n\nThen there were the Scaligers, Julius C\u00e6sar _p\u00e8re_, and Joseph\n_fils_, a greater man than his father, in the opinion of the best\njudges--himself included, probably. They were not men easy to please,\nthe Scaligers. Even Erasmus was not good enough for Julius C\u00e6sar, who\nused language truly awful about the glory of the priesthood and the\nshame. As for Joseph, there was but one man alive in his own line\nfor whom he had a vestige of respect, and that was Casaubon; and\nhe told him so, intimating that he might think a good deal of the\ncompliment, as he, Joseph, was the only man in Europe who was capable\nof forming an opinion about him--a perfectly true if not absolutely\nhumble observation. But however difficult to please in most cases,\nthe Scaligers had a sincere and unbounded admiration of Buchanan--an\nadmiration abundantly shown while he lived, and when he was gone,\nexpressed, especially by the younger Scaliger, with a tenderness and\nbeauty which stamp the tribute with authority and value. His epitaphium\non Buchanan concluded thus:--\n\n    \u2018Namque ad supremum perducta Poetica culmen\n      In te stat, nec quo progrediatur habet.\n    Imperii fuerat Romani Scotia limes;\n      Romani eloquii Scotia finis erit.\u2019\n\nAnybody with a fair understanding of Latin and a full understanding\nof epigram, who reads the last couplet here, will know that Scaliger\nwas perfectly qualified to pronounce a judgment in the matter. For the\nbenefit of the man in the street, it may be stated that what Scaliger\nwas driving at was that Buchanan had brought poetry to a pitch of\nperfection beyond which it could not go; and that as Scotland had in\nthe past been the last line of expansion for the Roman Empire, so in\nthe future it would, in the person of Buchanan, be found to have given\nthe highest note of Roman eloquence. Of course it may be said that this\nwas only the customary and privileged lie of the epitaph; but that it\nwas really Scaliger\u2019s deliberate opinion appears from a well-known\nquotation from his table-talk, that \u2018in Latin poetry Buchanan stands\nalone in Europe, and leaves everybody else behind.\u2019 Coming to more\nmodern times, it will probably be admitted that Wordsworth knew good\npoetry when he saw it, and he says of one of Buchanan\u2019s poems--by no\nmeans his best--that it was equal in sentiment, if not in elegance, to\nanything in Horace.\n\nThis he said before a pedantic relative pointed out a false quantity.\nWhat he would have felt had he known this before he read the poem,\nSchoolmaster only knows. What the latter potentate would have done\nwe may partly surmise from what Porson actually did when some one\ngot him to commence reading Buchanan\u2019s poetry and he stumbled up\nagainst a false quantity, or what he regarded as such. He at once\ngot up and pitched the volume across the room in disgust, probably\nwith an accompaniment of expressions not loud but deep. Regarding\nwhich behaviour, two remarks seem natural. The first is that possibly\nBuchanan was right and Porson wrong. At Eton, as is well known, Porson\nwas a poor quantitarian, and fell behind in consequence. He may have\nmade up his leeway afterwards, but not likely, and certainly his line\nof scholarship was not in the direction of Latin Prosody.\n\nBut suppose Buchanan were wrong, what then? Is Shakespeare to be\nflung into the corner because many of his lines will not scan? An\nindignant critic of the _Agamemnon_ has discovered, what I believe\nis the fact, that in that play \u00c6schylus has violated Dawes\u2019s canon.\nYet everybody that can reads the _Agamemnon_. Dr. Johnson points out\nthat Milton uses the hideous solecism _vapulandum_. Only think of\nit! And yet we read _Paradise Lost_. Perhaps Porson did too, knowing\nnothing of _vapulandum_! Johnson was no such stickler, for he read\nand enjoyed Milton, _vapulandum_ notwithstanding. He had also the\nhighest opinion of Buchanan, both as a Latinist and as \u2018a great\npoetical genius,\u2019 and his authority on such matters, being both poet\nand critic himself, is much greater than Porson\u2019s, great though the\nlatter was in his own department of research. Hallam is inclined to\nqualify the almost universal admiration of Buchanan\u2019s poetry, but\none begins to doubt Hallam\u2019s judgment in this matter when he finds\nhim preferring Buchanan\u2019s _De Sph\u00e6ra_ to the rest of his poetry. The\n_Sphere_ may contain exquisite isolated passages \u2018equal to Virgil,\u2019\nas the enthusiastic Guy Patin maintained, but it is not properly a\npoem at all. It is really a versified and very lame defence of the\nexploded Ptolemaic Astronomy, totally destitute of the human interest\nwhich inspires so much else that Buchanan wrote. On his own field of\nhistory Hallam is more of an authority, and here his admiration of\nBuchanan is unstinted and unequivocal. He extols the \u2018perspicuity and\npower\u2019 of the _History of Scottish Affairs_, recognises the \u2018purity\u2019\nof its diction, and affirms that few writings of the Latinists are\n\u2018more redolent of the antique air,\u2019 and is almost as emphatic in his\neulogy as Dryden, when the latter says of Buchanan, \u2018our isle may\njustly boast in him a writer comparable to any of the moderns, and\nexcelled by few of the ancients.\u2019 Froude might be cited to the same\neffect, but enough has been said to establish Buchanan\u2019s fame and power\nin the world of letters.\n\nOf course, care must be taken to distinguish the precise character\nof Buchanan\u2019s scholarship. He was not a scholar in the sense that\nCasaubon, or Porson, or Liddell and Scott were scholars. That is to\nsay, he was not a classical antiquarian, or philologist, or grammarian,\nalthough he knew antiquities and such philology as was going, and had\nrefurbished or even made a grammar or two as he went along. But he used\nthese simply as instruments to his main aim as a scholar, which was to\nwrite as good Latin as Virgil, or Livy, or Horace, or Tacitus. There\nis nothing absurd or impossible in such an aim. I have heard ardent\nAberdonians maintain that the late Dr. Melvin of their city wrote\nbetter Latin than Cicero, and, apart from the matter, I am quite ready\nto believe it. That Buchanan as good as accomplished his purpose we\nhave already seen.\n\nAnd be it remembered that all this cultivation of a Latin style was\nnot mere dilettante work on his part. He and one Sturm of Strasbourg,\nalong with other Humanists, had formed the design of making Latin the\nvernacular of Europe, and actually believed that it would ultimately\nbecome such. Hence they had a twofold purpose in writing Latin. They\ndesired to forward this reform of a universal language, and they wished\nto be intelligible to a Latin-speaking posterity. I state this on\nthe authority of Dr. P. Hume Brown, the well-known author of _George\nBuchanan, Humanist and Reformer_, and I should not advise any one\nrashly to contradict Dr. Brown on any Buchanan matter. He seems to me\nto have mastered the entire subject, and to have left very little for\nsubsequent research to do, unless some lucky \u2018find\u2019 of new sources\nshould occur. I have been able to glean nothing from any quarter that\nI have not found already known to Dr. Brown, and recorded by him,\nunless it be some such small fact as the presence of Joseph Scaliger in\nEdinburgh in 1566, along with his friend Chastaigner, but not expressly\nto see Buchanan; and other little things of that sort. I do not pretend\nto contribute any fresh Buchanan materials. My object is the humble,\nbut not, I hope, useless one of boiling down Dr. Brown and the other\nscientific biographers, and attempting a brief popular presentation of\nwhat Buchanan was and did.\n\nAnother proof of the varied power of Buchanan is found in the storm he\nraised as a controversialist, in the still burning question as to the\nguilt or innocence of Mary Queen of Scots. In 1571, four years after\nthe Scottish people had deposed their sovereign, Buchanan published a\npamphlet, or what in these days would probably have taken the shape of\na magazine article, with the title _Detectio Mari\u00e6 Regin\u00e6_, i.e. _The\nDetection or Exposure of Queen Mary_, or as an editor of to-day would\nhave been sure to head it, _The Truth about the Queen_. Buchanan\u2019s\nobject in this publication is to vindicate the Scottish people and\ntheir leaders before the public opinion of Europe for having, after\nthe murder of Darnley, brought Mary\u2019s career as sovereign to a close,\nas being not only a public danger, but a public scandal. That the\nvigour of the _brochure_ itself, backed up by Buchanan\u2019s immense\nreputation, went far to make Mary an impossible factor in European\npolitics, is beyond question. To the same extent he made himself the\n_b\u00eate noire_ of Mary\u2019s friends and apologists, and very brutal and\nvery black they certainly made him out to be. In more recent times\na school of sentimental historians has arisen, who refuse to see in\nMary either fault or flaw, and recognise in her a sort of spotless\ngoddess, of irresistible charm, thrown away upon an unworthy age. Not\ncontent with pity--it would be inhuman not to feel it in any case--they\nshow how true it is that pity is akin to love, and falling victims in\nsome degree to the spell which ruined the unhappy and love-maddened\nChastelard, they conduct a necessarily Platonic flirtation with their\nidol\u2019s romantic and fascinating memory, across the separating interval\nof three hundred years. Had Mary been ugly, or even plain, she would\nhave had fewer champions.\n\nIn vituperation of Buchanan they are not a whit behind his contemporary\nassailants. Mr. Hosack, for instance, one of the most ingenious of\nMary\u2019s modern defenders, calmly says, \u2018Buchanan was without doubt the\nmost venal and unscrupulous of men.\u2019 His usual way of alluding to the\n_Detectio_ is \u2018Buchanan\u2019s famous libel,\u2019 varied occasionally by \u2018the\nhighly coloured narrative of Buchanan,\u2019 or \u2018the subsequently invented\nslanders of Buchanan,\u2019 or \u2018the slanderous narrative of Buchanan,\u2019 or\n\u2018the atrocious libel of Buchanan.\u2019 Sir John Skelton, whose treatment\nof the subject is distinguished by a literary grace which cannot\nbe claimed for Mr. Hosack, is on a level with him when he reaches\nBuchanan. \u2018Buchanan\u2019s atrocious libel\u2019 is common form with the Marians,\nand Sir John has it. Perhaps his gentlest reference is when he speaks\nof \u2018the industrious animosity of the man who had been her pensioner,\u2019\nand when he desires to be specially severe, he speaks of \u2018grotesque\nadventures invented, or at least adapted, by Buchanan, whose virulent\nanimosities were utterly unscrupulous, and whose clumsy invective was\nas bitter as it was pedantic.\u2019 The present is not the place to inquire\ninto the truth or falsehood of these statements. They are adduced\nmerely as a tribute to Buchanan\u2019s power. \u2018Woe unto you when all men\nshall speak well of you,\u2019 does not logically justify the counter\nstatement, \u2018Good for you when all men shall speak ill of you\u2019; but\nwhen a controversialist has been abused by his opponents as Buchanan\nhas been, it is at least a proof that he has been found a formidable\nantagonist, either for his ability or veracity, or both, and that in\nthe direct ratio of the violence with which they attack him.\n\nOne other aspect of Buchanan\u2019s varied power seems to call for some\nmention. Up to the middle of this century, a chapbook usually entitled\n_The Witty and Entertaining Exploits of George Buchanan_, sometimes\nadding _The King\u2019s Jester_, ran through many editions original and\nrevised, and had a certain vogue all over Scotland among a considerable\nclass--not the most refined, certainly--of the population. It is an\nignorant, coarse, and indecent production, and can be read only by\nthe historical student for the purpose of investigating the popular\ntaste of its time. Its description of Buchanan as the \u2018Fule\u2019 instead\nof the tutor of King James, and its placing him at the English court\nof James, who did not ascend the throne of England until Buchanan\nhad been twenty-one years dead, are sufficient commentary on its\nhistorical accuracy. At first sight one might imagine that it had been\nput together by an enemy of Buchanan, but its brutish zeal in holding\nup Buchanan as a desperately clever fellow who was continually turning\nthe tables and raising the laugh against people who wished to take him\noff, and who were generally English, and often English nobles, bishops\nor other clergy, show that it was earnest in its admiration according\nto its dim and dirty lights.\n\nBuchanan was a humorist, and saw the ludicrous side of existence with\na depth and keenness and enjoyment very different from the barbarian\nfaculty which produced the \u2018merry bourds\u2019 of Knox and certain of his\niconoclastic cronies. Even the prospect of having soon to leave the\nworld could not make him utterly solemn, although the circumstances\nlend a grim aspect to the humour which may make it distasteful to\nwooden seriousness. \u2018Tell the people who sent you,\u2019 he said to the\nmacer of the Court of Session, who came to summon him for something\nobjectionable in some of his writings, \u2018tell them I am summoned before\na higher tribunal.\u2019 When good John Davidson called on him and reminded\nhim of the usual evangelical consolations, he repaid him with some\noriginal causticity _\u00e0 propos_ of the Romish doctrine of the Mass,\nwhich would no doubt delight that worthy man. He never had much money\nat any time, and less than usual at the close; and when, on counting it\nup with his attendant, he found that there was not enough to bury him,\nhe directed it to be given to the poor. But \u2018what about the funeral?\u2019\nnaturally asked the servitor. \u2018Well,\u2019 Buchanan said, \u2018he was very\nindifferent about that,\u2019 as he meditated on the dilemma in which he saw\nhe was placing the people of Edinburgh, who had not been over kind to\nthe greatest scholar of the age. \u2018If they will not bury me,\u2019 he said,\n\u2018they can let me lie where I am, or throw my body where they like.\u2019\nOf course, as he knew, they had to bury him, so he could enjoy his\nposthumous triumph of wit; but they had their repartee, denying him a\ngravestone for a generation or two.\n\nThere is a weird humour in the famous interview between himself on\nthe one hand and the Melvilles, Andrew and James, on the other, who\nhad crossed from St. Andrews to Edinburgh to see him shortly before\nhe passed away. They found him teaching his young attendant his _a b,\nab_. Andrew Melville, amused by the spectacle of the greatest scholar\nin Europe engaged in so disproportionate a task, made a suitable\nobservation. \u2018Better this than stealing sheep,\u2019 quoth Buchanan, or\n\u2018than being idill,\u2019 he added, which latter he maintained to be as\nbad as the stealing of sheep. Then the conversation wandered to his\n_History_, which was by this time in the hands of the printer. The\nMelvilles noticed in the proofs the well-known and ugly story of Mary\u2019s\nhaving got Rizzio\u2019s body removed to the tomb of James V. They suggested\nthat the king might take offence at this reflection on his mother\u2019s\nmemory, and that the publication might be stopped. \u2018Tell me,\u2019 said the\ndying historian, \u2018if it is true.\u2019 They said they thought so. \u2018Then I\nwill bide his feud, and all his kin\u2019s,\u2019 was the answer. There was, no\ndoubt, a dash of the heroic in this, but there was a chuckle in it\ntoo, as the speaker reflected that the king who had neglected him, and\nwhom he had flogged for persistent boyish insolence, according to the\npedagogic fashion of the time, would once more have his pride humbled\nat his hands when he was gone.\n\nNo story was better known in Scotland than his correction of the king,\nand his now unrepeatable sarcasm in reply to the Countess of Mar\u2019s\nhaughty demand how he, a mere man of learning, could dare to lift his\nhand upon the Lord\u2019s anointed. It tickled the popular mind, and along\nwith other reports of Buchanan\u2019s fun--for it is not to be supposed\nthat his table-talk with the Scaligers, or even with Knox, was wholly\nfunereal in character--indeed we know it was not--formed a sort of\nBuchanan myth, to which every witling who thought he had invented a\ngood thing, and wanted to get it listened to by fathering it on a\nwell-known name--a device not yet extinct--would contribute further\nbulk, although not more ornament. In this way an idea of Buchanan as\na man of mirth and facetiousness[1] would take root and spread in the\npublic consciousness, and as the people could not get at the real\nBuchanan for his Latin, they formed a picture of him according to their\nown uncivilised conceptions. Hence the chapbooks--a hideous reflection\nfrom a cracked and distorted mirror, but still showing that there was\nsomething to reflect.\n\nSuch was Buchanan, political thinker, practical statesman, poet,\nscholar, historian, controversialist, humorist, and great in all these\ndiverse directions--certainly a personality worth knowing in greater\ndetail.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nCHARACTERISTICS\n\n\nBuchanan\u2019s life, like the lives of most people who have done anything\nworth speaking of in their time, divides itself roughly into two\nsections--the period of preparation, and the period of performance.\nWhat I shall call his period of performance, or at all events chief\nperformance, was from the time when he finally returned to Scotland,\nafter an absence abroad, with brief interruptions, of twenty-two years,\nand spent the remaining twenty-one years of his life in more or less\nintimate occupation with the public affairs of his country. On the\n19th of August 1561, Queen Mary, then in her nineteenth year, landed\nat Leith, and was escorted to Holyrood by her enthusiastic subjects,\nby whom she was also serenaded at night in a style which, as the\nqueen\u2019s French retinue thought, showed more heart than art. Shortly\nbefore or after this date, Buchanan, now fifty-five years old, also\nappeared in Scotland, for his final settlement there. It is a curious\ncoincidence that these two persons, eminent alike in their widely\ndivergent spheres, and destined alternately to a literary friendship\nthat was pleasant to both, and a political antagonism that was fatal\nto one of them, should have appeared on the scene of their sympathies\nand conflicts practically at the same time. I have said that the\ndivision of Buchanan\u2019s life into a period of preparation and a period\nof performance is a rough division. By that I mean that what really\ndeserves to be called performance could not be absolutely excluded from\nthe preparation period, and that, to some extent, one stage of the\nperformance period was often a preparation for the next; but taken with\nthis qualification, the division is a sufficiently valid one.\n\nIt was, for instance, mainly during the preparation or foreign period\nthat Buchanan wrote those poems which stamped him not only as a man\nof wit and poetic genius, but as the first Latin stylist in Europe of\nhis day. During this period, too, he acquired from classic and other\nsources those broad and comprehensive ideas on the leading questions\nof the day which made him the thinker and Humanist as contrasted with\nthe mere cleric or scholastic obscurantist. It was then also that,\nthrough observation on the spot, he was able to comprehend the \u2018true\ninwardness\u2019 of the struggle that was going forward between the old\norder of things and the new, and often give practical advice that\nwas useful. In this period, too, he completed that thorough study\nof the Roman and Protestant controversy which ended in determining\nhim to identify himself publicly with the Protestant side in the\ngreat conflict that was on foot--in itself no inconsiderable event.\nAll this was undoubtedly performance of no mean order, but from the\nScottish national point of view, and from the point of view of general\nhistory, on which the special Scottish history exerted so profound an\ninfluence, it was preparatory to the great work he did in his native\nland. His Latin and his various Continental activities are forgotten,\nbut his Scottish work is still memorable. Yet it was because he was\nthe great Humanist and unequalled Latinist, as well as the thinker and\nexperienced observer of affairs, that he was able to command the ear\nof learned and diplomatic Europe, and through them to make the events\nthat were happening in his country a factor in the world\u2019s history. His\nforeign performance was therefore, in reality, a preparation for his\ncrowning performance at home. I shall not labour the point of one stage\nof his performance being preparatory to another.\n\nOf course I do not mean to say that Buchanan did all this consciously\nand systematically; that he deliberately prepared abroad, and then\ncame and deliberately performed at home. Few men, especially men\nof Buchanan\u2019s type, shape their lives on such lines of exact and\nexhaustive purpose. I leave out of account the unhappily large class\nwho foolishly, and even wickedly, throw away their lives, and have\nhardly ever tried or desired to make a better of it. I confine myself\nto those who do get something out of life for themselves or society,\nor both. But I doubt if any, beyond a small minority even of this\nclass, begin life with a distinct aim at reaching what they end life\nby becoming. There is, of course, the famous case of Whittington, who\nset himself in cold blood to become Lord Mayor of London. But for\none Whittington there have been centuries of Lord Mayors who never\ndreamt of the Mansion House when they started business in the City.\nThe glory and the turtle came upon them, virtually unsolicited; and\neven Whittington would probably not have addressed himself as he did\nto his high achievement, had it not been for the unique campanula of\ninspiration caught by his ear alone. Probably Napoleon early laid his\nplans for attaining the mastership of France, possibly of Europe; but\ndid C\u00e6sar begin life with a determination to conquer Rome and become\nits dictator, or Cromwell with a sketch-plan for cutting off his king\u2019s\nhead, cashiering his country\u2019s parliament, and making himself Lord\nProtector and military despot?\n\nMillionaires are seldom so of set design. They begin, most probably,\nby aiming at a competent fortune, but having got that length, the\nacquired delight in pulling the strings of an extensive and possibly\nadventurous undertaking, and not mere miserly greed, has kept them\nat a task which they find they can perform, until the millions roll\nin as a justification of their ideas and processes. In politics and\nthe professions men probably set out with a general aim at the best\nposition and the most money they can make for themselves; but very few,\nI should imagine, of those who have reached the greatest eminence or\nprosperity possible to them said in their youth, \u2018I mean to be Prime\nMinister, or Lord Chancellor, or Archbishop of Canterbury, or President\nof the Royal College of Physicians, or of the Royal Academy.\u2019 Buchanan\nseems to have belonged to a type of character which does not include\neither of the classes of persons just considered. Neither cupidity nor\nambition nor any of the ordinary self-aggrandising motives seems to\nhave had much, if any, place in his character. Apostrophising Buchanan\nin his Funeral Elegy, Joseph Scaliger says:--\n\n    \u2018Contemptis opibus, spretis popularibus auris,\n    Ventos\u00e6que fugax ambitionis, obis.\u2019\n\n \u2018Despising wealth, spurning the mob\u2019s applause, and shunning vain\n ambition, thou passest away.\u2019\n\nThis was literally true. Buchanan lived from hand to mouth during the\ngreater part of his career. But there is no evidence that he ever tried\nto make a fortune. He might have prospered in the Church, as Dunbar was\nwilling to do. But he had ideas of his own on that subject, and neither\ngold nor dignities could tempt him to sell his soul.\n\n\n_Begging Letter-Writer_\n\nHe was often \u2018hard up,\u2019 but it does not appear to have depressed his\nspirits. Indeed, he is never sprightlier, more epigrammatically witty,\nor more genially humorous than when he is what some of us might call\n\u2018begging\u2019 from some wealthy friend who could appreciate his genius and\naccomplishments. Here, for instance, is a \u2018begging letter\u2019 to Queen\nMary, in the days when they were still friends, and read Livy, and\ndoubtless indulged in fencing-matches of wit together:--\n\n    \u2018Do quod adest: opto quod abest tibi: dona darentur\n      Aurea, sors animo si foret \u00e6qua meo.\n    Hoc leve si credis, paribus me ulciscere donis:\n      Et quod abest, opta tu mihi: da quod adest.\u2019\n\nWhich may be literally, or nearly so, according \u2018to the best of my\nknowledge and belief,\u2019 as the affidavits say:--\n\n    \u2018To you I give what I do have: for you I wish what you\n        don\u2019t have:\n    Golden, indeed, would be my gifts, were Fortune equal\n        to my will.\n    If you should chance to think this levity, in equal levities\n        have your revenge:\n    For me wish you what I don\u2019t have: to me give you\n        what you do have.\u2019\n\nDr. Hume Brown puts it neatly into rhyme thus:--\n\n    \u2018I give you what I have: I wish you what you lack:\n    And weightier were my gift, were fortune at my back.\n    Perchance you think I jest? A like jest then I crave:\n    Wish for me what I lack, and give me what you have.\u2019\n\nTake another in the same strain:--\n\n            \u2018Ad Jacobum, Moravi\u00e6 Comitem.\n    \u2018Si magis est, ut Christus ait, donare beatum,\n      Quam de munifica dona referre manu:\n    Aspice quam faveam tibi: sis ut dando beatus,\n      Non renuo fieri, te tribuente, miser.\u2019\n\n \u2018To James, Earl of Moray.\n\n \u2018If, as Christ says, it is more blessed to give than to receive gifts\n from a munificent hand, just see what a favour I am doing you: that\n you may be blessed in giving, I am ready to play miserable receiver to\n your happy donor.\u2019\n\nOr, to cite Dr. Brown again:--\n\n    \u2018It is more blest, saith Holy Writ, to give than to receive:\n    How great, then, is your debt to me, who take whate\u2019er you give!\u2019\n\nWith equally humorous familiarity he sends in an application, \u2018Ad\nMatth\u00e6um Levini\u00e6 Comitem, Scoti\u00e6 Proregem\u2019 (To Matthew, Earl of Lennox,\nRegent of Scotland\u2019). I quote only the concluding couplet:--\n\n    \u2018Denique da quidvis, podagram modo deprecor unam:\n    Munus erit medicis aptius illa suis.\u2019\n\nThat is--\n\n \u2018To be brief, give me whatever you like--only, not your gout. That\n will be a more appropriate fee for the doctors who are trying to cure\n it.\u2019\n\nOr to fall back on Dr. Brown\u2019s translation once more:--\n\n    \u2018Since I am poor and you are rich, what happy chance is thine!\n    My modest wishes, too, you know--one nugget from your mine!\n    Only, whatever be your gift, let it not be your gout:\n    _That_, a meet present for your leech, I\u2019d rather go without.\u2019\n\nThese are merely samples of many communications, similar in object and\nstyle, which he addressed, at various periods of his life, to quarters\nwhere he thought they would not be ill-taken. As a rule, he supported\nhimself by \u2018regenting\u2019 in colleges, or acting as tutor in royal or\nnoble families. It was only when he could not make a better of it\nthat he asked Society, through its most likely magnates, to give him\nsomething \u2018to go on with.\u2019 What else could he do? Carlyle\u2019s description\nof Thackeray as \u2018writing for his life\u2019 could never have applied to\nBuchanan. Literature was not yet a profession or \u2018bread-study.\u2019 It\nwas not till next century that Milton got \u00a35 for _Paradise Lost_; and\neven Shakespeare made his money less as a writer than as a showman.\nThe idea of Buchanan or Erasmus--a much more importunate beggar than\nBuchanan--going into business, say the wine or the wool trade, would\nhave been absurd. They would have ruined any house that adopted them\nin two or three years, to say nothing of the indecency of allowing\nintellectual leaders of high genius to be lost in work which could be\nmuch better done by humbler men. There was nothing else for it, in\nBuchanan\u2019s case, but to do as he did.\n\nOf course, in this age of contract and commerce, we are apt to\nassociate an idea of meanness and pitifulness with the conduct of\nBuchanan and Erasmus and others in this matter. Our first feeling is\nthat nobody should give any other body anything except according to\nbargain. Every man should be independent, and if he asks anything\noutside a contract, he might as well go bankrupt at once. He must\nclearly be a weakling, and the weak must go to the wall. The feudal\nsentiment, however, amidst which Buchanan lived, was entirely\ndifferent, and had a nobler side than ours, although one does not want\nfeudalism back merely on that account. Kings and lords took everything\nto themselves, in the shape of power and possession, that they could\nlay their hands on; but it was on the understanding that they were to\nmake a generous use of what they had appropriated. _Noblesse oblige_\nwas still a maxim with vitality in it. The right men acknowledged it,\nand acted on it; the ruffians, as their manner is, wherever they are\nplaced in life, ignored it. Patronage was not an act of grace: it was\na duty. It was part of the honourable service to society, by which the\npatron\u2019s tenure of his prosperity was conditioned. More particularly\nmust this duty have been recognised by right-minded possessors of\npower and wealth who had felt the influence of the Renaissance, that\nmighty and far-reaching effort of the human intellect to assert its\nfreedom and its varied energies against the narrowing and obscurantist\ninfluences of scholasticism, reduced to its then existing state of\nenslavement, often against its better knowledge and attempts at\nself-emancipation, by Ecclesiastical authority, wielding the weapon of\nPapal and Conciliar decree, sanctioned by fire and faggot.\n\nThen there was still the tradition of hospitality which the Old Church,\nwith all its faults, had kept up. In these contractual days of ours,\nthere is very little hospitality, as it was defined by the Author of\nChristianity. A modern dinner is generally a meeting of creditors,\nor a combination of clever or stupid epicureans, the better to amuse\nor otherwise enjoy themselves, according to their tastes in meat\nand drink, or even conversation. It is often a case of undisguised\n\u2018treating\u2019 on the part of the so-called host, who wants to use his\nso-called guests for a purpose, and whose performance might very\nappropriately go into a schedule to some of the Bribery and Corruption\nActs. But in the days of the Old Church, a wandering or needy scholar\nwould have been welcomed at many, if not all, of the religious houses,\nand treated on a very different footing from our applicants for relief\nat the casual wards of one of our workhouses, probably the only\ninstitution resembling Christian hospitality authorised by modern\norganised society.\n\nThis latter may be a better arrangement, for anything I know to the\ncontrary. All I say is that it is different from what was recognised\nin Buchanan\u2019s day. It would never occur to Buchanan that he was doing\nanything inconsistent with self-respect in putting his position\nbefore people like Queen Mary, or Moray, or Lennox, and asking their\ntemporary aid or a permanent office. They had taken over the wealth\nof the religious houses; did not their hospitalities pass with it?\nThey had divided up the country among themselves and others; were\nthey not honourably bound to see that a great civilising force like\nBuchanan was not extinguished? Besides, he understood his own value.\nA man is not six feet six inches high without being aware of it. He\nknew what he was, and what he had made himself, and what he was worth,\nand that he was giving as good as he was getting, or likely to get.\nIn those days a great master of the New Learning was an object of the\nhighest admiration, as a sort of intellectual Magician. Moreover, he\nwas a power, in as far as he was a leader of contemporary thought and\nlearning.\n\nIn these respects Buchanan was an invaluable acquisition to persons\nlike Mary, or Moray, or Lennox, or Knox, who must have winked at a good\ndeal in Buchanan, which he would not have stood in a less potent ally.\nIn his prime, and even until his death, no one had an equal command\nover the universal ear of cultured Europe. To the rulers of his time he\nwas worth what, say, fifty friendly editors of newspapers--including\nthe _Times_ and all the sixpenny weeklies, as far as they are worth\nanything would be to a politician of to-day. To Queen Mary especially,\nwith her refined intellectual tastes and her ambition to be a figure\nin the world, it was no small matter to have the greatest and most\nbrilliant scholar-poet of the day as a part of her court, whether\nhe read Livy and exchanged wit with herself, or officiated as her\npoet-laureate on great occasions. As a mere ornament he was worth a\nconsiderable fraction of her best diamond necklace.\n\nI am dwelling on this point because it will save time and trouble\nafterwards, and accordingly I ask further if Edie Ochiltree, in later\ntimes, and in a less feudalistic state of public sentiment, could\nbeg round the district, without loss of respect, on the strength of\nhis badge and uniform, testifying to past good service in his time\nand station, why should not an eminent public servant like Buchanan,\nin a totally different state of general feeling on such matters, ask\nsociety, through representatives of it who, he knew, should not and\nwould not treat him roughly, to help him in prosecuting his shining\nand useful career? He had done a good work on the High Street of the\nWorld. He had sung it a song or played it a melody such as it would\nhear nowhere else. Was he not entitled to send round his hat among the\nlisteners? Is it not what is done by every book-writer of to-day,\nwho, when the last page is finished, sends out a confederate in the\nshape of a publisher to canvass the public--for a consideration--with\nthe book in one hand and the hat in the other? Is it not what is done,\n_inter alia_, by every Parliamentary lawyer, who goes into the House of\nCommons to grind his axe, when the fitting occasion arises, and he says\nto his party leader, \u2018I have fought two general elections for you. I\nhave spoken for you unnumbered times in the House and on the platform.\nI have voted for you, up hill and down dale, through thick and thin,\nright or wrong, and now I will trouble you for that Chancellorship, or\nthat Chief-Justiceship, or that Attorney-Generalship, or that Puisne\nor County Court Judgeship that has just fallen vacant\u2019? Except that\nBuchanan and his work were not shams, but realities, the cases are the\nsame.\n\nBuchanan\u2019s enemies say that in accepting maintenance or preferment he\nsold his independence to the donors, and when it is answered that he\nshowed anything but want of independence in the case of Queen Mary and\nothers, whom he subsequently came to oppose in the public interest,\nthey tack about and accuse him of the basest ingratitude--in biting\nthe hand that fed him, as they put it. It is as if in these days Sir\nGorgias Midas, M.P., were to say to some editor who had noticed a\nspeech of his unfavourably, \u2018Ungrateful scribbler, have I not, over\nand over again, dined you and wined you with the best that larder and\ncellar can produce, and do you now turn and rend me?\u2019 There have been\neditors who would have answered, \u2018Presumptuous moneybag, I suppose\nI paid fully for my dinner with my company, and I am perfectly free\nto criticise you as you deserve.\u2019 Buchanan stood equally free in his\nrelations to his patrons. From the personal point of view, whether his\nconnection were regarded as an ornament, a pleasure, or a utility,\nhis alliance was worth his subsidy. From the public point of view it\nwas their duty, as trustees for the public property and progress, to\nmaintain a great civiliser like Buchanan in a position where his powers\nhad scope, while it was Buchanan\u2019s privilege and duty to exercise his\ncreative and critical capacities in the public interest without fear\nor favour. And this, as will be seen, is what Buchanan substantially\ndid. Knox and Melville repeatedly reminded Queen Mary and King James\nthat there was another kingdom in the realm besides theirs--the kingdom\nof Christ, to wit--and suggested, or rather demanded, that their\nMajesties should not meddle with officials of this spiritual kingdom\nlike themselves, the said Knox and Melville. This claim they rested\non a supernatural, and therefore disputable, basis. But there could be\nnothing disputable about the ground Buchanan stood on. He too was a\npotentate--of the intellect; a king of thought, learning, and poetic\nmight, and in that dominion, when it was necessary, bore himself with\na courage and independence that have not always been successfully\nreproduced by his successors, when confronted with the monarchies and\nlordships of material power and glory.\n\n\n_No Notoriety Hunter_\n\nThis discussion arose in our endeavour to determine Buchanan\u2019s\ncharacter so far as money-making was concerned. He was no money-maker.\n_Contemptis opibus_--\u2018despising wealth\u2019--is, as we have seen, Joseph\nScaliger\u2019s account of him, meaning thereby that personally he did\nnot care for more money than would maintain the much other than\nmoney-making career which he liked, and had set his heart on, keeping\nhimself independent by the labour of a scholar, but not hesitating\nto ask payment, when he wanted it, from a society that was morally\nindebted to him. His indifference, however, to wealth as a life-object\nmust not be confounded with the counsel of the ascetic preacher who\nurges his hearers to forget the present world in thoughts of the\nworld to come, and wins, perhaps, a better living by an eloquent and\npessimistic sermon on the text which says that \u2018the love of money is\nthe root of all evil.\u2019 There is nothing to show that Buchanan did not\nhold, with all sensible people, that there is a sense in which the\nlove of money is the root of all good, inasmuch as it is the men of\nstrong cupidity who organise industry and commerce, thereby laying\nthat foundation of material wealth without which there can be no\nsuperstructure of leisured thought, learning, or art, acting, it may\nbe, only as the dray-horses of civilisation--some of them, of course,\nare a good deal more--but worthy of all the corn they consume, although\nwere one desirous of exchanging ideas, it would not be to their\nsumptuous stables that he would resort.\n\nNeither does he appear to have set his heart upon the ordinary\nobjects of ambition, in the shape of fame or power. \u2018Dear is fame to\nthe rhyming tribe.\u2019 \u2018That dearest wish of every poetic bosom--to be\ndistinguished,\u2019 said Burns in his preface to the first edition of his\npoems, and he, if any one, was entitled to speak. But in the same\npreface he also says that to amuse himself amidst toil, to transcribe\nthe feelings in his own breast, to find some counterpoise to the\nstruggles of a world alien and uncouth to the poetic mind--\u2018these\nwere his motives for courting the Muses, and in these he found Poetry\nto be its own reward.\u2019 In other words, the poet may desire fame and\ndistinction for what he has done, yet it need not have been the desire\nof fame and distinction that made him do it. Buchanan seems to have\nbeen even more self-controlled or more indifferent than this account\nof matters might imply. His numerous efforts had won him the highest\nreputation, but he had taken no pains to advertise himself. He had\nhanded his productions here and there to friends who wished to see\nthem, and it was only the solicitation of those friends that prevented\nhis consigning to everlasting obscurity some of the brightest things\nhe, or indeed any one else, ever wrote.\n\nHis most famous production as a poet, his version of the Hebrew Psalms,\nor rather series of poems based upon these, was certainly not written\nfor fame. Every Humanist of eminence was expected to try his hand upon\nthe Psalms, and when Buchanan found himself in Portugal under lock and\nkey, at the instance of the Inquisition, among a set of monks, whom he\nhits off as equally good-natured and ignorant, and who had been told\noff to instruct him in orthodoxy, he addressed himself to a classic\nrendering of the Psalms with the double purpose of discharging his duty\nby his Humanistic Vocation, and doing something that might redeem his\ntime and his temper from the boredom of the uncongenial society amidst\nwhich misfortune had placed him. There does not seem in all this much\nof that passionate desire of distinction to which Burns confesses. It\nis said, however, that fame was his object in commencing and carrying\non his poem on the _Sphere_, which was undoubtedly planned on an\nelaborate and extensive scale. If fame was his desire, it was not a\nvery consuming one, for he was five-and-twenty years at least over it,\nand left it unfinished at last, although goaded by friends to hasten\nits production.\n\nWhat does he say on the matter himself? Writing to Tycho Brahe in\n1576, six years before his death, and more than twenty after he began\nto work at the _Sphere_, he says that bad health had compelled him,\n_spem scribendi carminis in posterum penitus abjicere_,--\u2018completely\nto abandon the hope of writing a poem for posterity.\u2019 Three years\nafterwards, writing to a literary friend in England, who, like many\nothers, kept dunning him for his promised books, and even for \u2018copy,\u2019\nhe says, with respect to his \u2018astronomical\u2019 aims in poetry, he had not\nso much voluntarily abandoned them, as been obliged reluctantly to\nsubmit to the deprivation of them; _neque enim aut nunc libet nugari,\naut si maxime vellem per \u00e6tatem licet. Accessit eo histori\u00e6 scribend\u00e6\nlabor_,--\u2018for neither am I now greatly disposed for mere trifling,\nnor, were I never so much disposed, will my years allow it. Then in\naddition to my other difficulties there is the labour of writing my\n_History_\u2019; the plain meaning being that as his years forbade him\nto do both the _History_ and the _Sphere_, he elected to go on with\nthe _History_ and give up the _Sphere_, as a form of _nugari_ or\n\u2018dilettantism.\u2019\n\nAll this does not look very like a burning eagerness for posthumous\nfame, at all events of the kind that moves a certain class of people to\nleave money for hospitals, or almshouses, or learned foundations, to\nperpetuate names that would otherwise never have risen out of obscurity\nor escaped oblivion. As a matter of fact, Buchanan knew that he was\ncelebrated, but no one had a poorer opinion of the work that had won\nhim reputation than he had himself, not from the modesty of merit,\nas the common form carelessly puts it, but from the consciousness of\nmerit, and because he felt that it was in him to do better. He hated\nthe idea of having more celebrity than he deserved, and wanted to\nproduce something that would show he was not an impostor or a quack.\nIn short, he did not want more fame, but what he thought a better and\nhonester title to the fame he had. That, however, is not the passion\nfor fame, but simply self-respect, and an unselfish anxiety for the\ngood name of those friends who had staked their reputation for taste\nand judgment on his ability for turning out the highest class of work.\nThis is not the love of glory, but something better, although even if\nit were, it would not necessarily be either weak or wrong, provided the\nsubject of it knew what he was doing in giving a rational scope to a\nnatural impulse, and that he could and would give humanity something\nworth the prize of its praise.\n\nBuchanan himself tells us why he gave up the _Sphere_ and took up the\n_History_. It was primarily to gratify his friends, who thought that\nsuch a work was a want of the time, more useful and more suitable to\nBuchanan\u2019s years than poetry; while he himself assures us, and there is\nno reason to doubt his declaration, that he desired to set before his\nroyal pupil, James VI., the warnings and the encouragements derivable\nfrom the story of his predecessors on the throne, including his own\nill-advised and ill-fated mother. It was no fault of Buchanan\u2019s if\nJames despised his teacher\u2019s counsel, and, listening to flatterers,\ntook up with the Divine Right doctrine, by impressing which on his\nunhappy son, both through precept and example, he virtually destined\nhim to jump the life to come from the scaffold of Whitehall.\n\nBuchanan\u2019s friends seem to have tried to tempt him to undertake the\n_History_ by representing that no subject was _aut uberius ad laudem,\naut firmius ad memori\u00e6 conservandam diuturnitatem_,--\u2018better fitted to\nwin him renown or prolong his memory.\u2019 It is not on the strength of\nsuch hopes, however, that he describes himself as working. It was, by\nhis own account, only the shame of leaving unfinished a task he had\nengaged himself to his friends to perform that made him persevere at a\nlabour which, he says, _in \u00e6tate integra permolestus, nunc vero in hac\nmeditatione mortis, inter mortalitatis metum, et desinendi pudorem,\nnon potest non lentus esse et ingratus, quando nec cessare licet, nec\nprogredi lubet_,--\u2018would, even in the flower of my age, have been a\nburden, but now, in contemplation of my end, what between the dread of\ndeath interrupting me before I am done, and the shame there would be\nin abandoning my undertaking, I neither find myself free to stop, nor\nfeel any pleasure in going on.\u2019 Not much there of glory for himself,\nalthough something of an heroic devotion to the claims of friendship\nand the call of duty!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nCHARACTERISTICS--(_continued_)\n\n\n_Did not seek power_\n\nScaliger\u2019s ascription to Buchanan of a spirit superior to the\ntemptations of wealth and fame seems thus fairly well justified;\nbut what of his further claim that he was insensible to ambition?\nHe rose to be the foremost Latin poet and man of letters, or indeed\npoet and man of letters of any kind in his day, and to the highest\npositions, political, ecclesiastical, educational, in his native land.\nDid he reach all this without aiming at it? Did it all come upon him\nunsolicited? Substantially, it would seem, that was so. The key to his\nplan of life, I believe, is to be found in the beginning of the short\nautobiography which he wrote (1580) in the third person, two years\nbefore his death, not from motives of egotism, but at the request\nof friends. He is stating how he came to be sent to the University\nof Paris when about fourteen, and then he says, _ibi cum studiis\nliterarum, maxime carminibus scribendis, operam dedisset, partim\nnatur\u00e6 impulsu, partim necessitate (quod hoc unum studiorum genus\nadolescenti\u00e6 proponebatur)_, etc.,--\u2018devoting himself there to literary\nstudies, and chiefly to writing verses, partly from natural impulse\nand partly from necessity, that being the only sort of study open to\nyouthful learners.\u2019\n\nThat is really Buchanan in a nutshell. He followed the bent of his\ngenius, and did not pick and choose his work, but performed, to the\nbest of his ability, the task placed before him by Destiny. He lived\nup to his nature and his Fate, did with his might what his hand found\nto do, then took up the next undertaking that came along, and handled\nit in the same fashion. He waited upon \u2018time and the hour\u2019 rather than\nsought to force its hand--a very good way, if not indeed the best way,\nto confront life and its problems, for those who are wise enough and\nstrong enough to do it. He made himself master of the spirit, ideas,\nand style of the great writers and thinkers of classic antiquity,\nbecause it was the work that lay nearest to his hand, and because he\nliked it--passionately--and could not rest until it was all and easily\nhis own, and not because he thought he could make it pay, whether in\nmoney or reputation, or both. Except in the case of the unlucky and\nunfinished _Sphere_, he did not sit down to compose poetry deliberately\nand in cold blood, at the rate of so many scores or hundreds of lines\nbefore breakfast or dinner, as certain \u2018poets\u2019 are said to have done,\nor do. His best work of this kind was struck out of him like the fire\nfrom the flint, by the demand of the occasion, or the suggestion of\nfriends, or an inspiration or impulse that came upon him at the moment.\n\nIt was the request of James V. (1537) that led to his becoming the\nmost powerful satirist of his time and country, much above Lyndsay, at\nleast on a level with Dunbar, and second only to Burns. His \u2018Psalms\u2019\nwere written (1550-51) to kill time while imprisoned in a Portuguese\nmonastery. His Elegies, Epigrams, Tragedies, Masques, Addresses\n(1530-66) were thrown off in answer to the call of the moment and\nthe circumstances. The _Detectio Regin\u00e6_ (1569-71) was composed at\nthe desire of the great anti-despotic and reforming party to which\nhe belonged. The \u2018Admonition to the Trew Lordis\u2019 and the \u2018Chameleon\u2019\nwere political tracts for the times designed to stimulate the flagging\nzeal of the friends of freedom. The _De Jure_ (1570-79) was inspired\nby a present and a foreseen necessity of making Liberty impregnable as\nagainst the reactionaries of Absolutism. The _History_ was undertaken\nand completed (1569-82) less for a scientific than for a patriotic and\npolitico-paideutic purpose, to set his country and its constitution in\na true light before the world, and to help in moulding its future king\ninto the constitutional ruler of a free people.\n\nHe held many appointments, and executed many commissions, not a few of\nthem of the highest responsibility and dignity, but most of them sought\nhim, not he them. Lord Cassilis had him for tutor-companion (1532-37).\nKing James V. engaged him as tutor for one of his children (1538-39).\nThe King of Portugal employed him to aid in founding and conducting\nhis College at Coimbra, and did his best, though in vain, to retain\nhim in his kingdom (1547-52). The famous Mar\u00e9chal de Brissac chose him\nto mould the mind of his son, and sometimes had him at a Council of\nWar (1555-60). Queen Mary attached him to her Court, and as we have\nseen, read Livy with him, and, no doubt, much else (1562). The General\nAssembly of the Reformed Church of Scotland chose him, though a layman,\nas their Moderator (1567), he having already sat four years as a member\nand aided them in drawing up their _First Book of Discipline_. He was\nappointed by Regent Moray Principal of St. Leonard\u2019s College, St.\nAndrews (1566), to reorganise its curriculum and constitution. He was\nselected as Secretary to the Commission sent by the Scots Government to\ndeal with the high questions at issue between Queens Elizabeth and Mary\n(1568-69). The Scots Parliament chose him to the extremely responsible\noffice of Tutor to the youthful King James VI. (1570), and continued\nhim in that position nominally until his death (1582). He sat as a\nmember of the Scots Parliament (1570-78) in virtue of his keepership of\nthe Privy Seal, and did secretarial work for it, which nobody else was\nqualified to do, while at the same time assisting the General Assembly\nin revising their Book of \u2018Policy.\u2019 This keepership he may have\nsolicited--he subsequently resigned it--although there is no proof of\nthat, but all the other appointments came to him, and engaged his best\nability as they passed him in procession.\n\n\n_Sir James Melville backs Scaliger_\n\nThis view of Buchanan\u2019s character and scheme of life is confirmed\nby the remarkable and elaborate account of him given, in his own\n_Memoirs_, by Sir James Melville of Halhill (1545-1617), a professional\ncourtier and diplomatist who had served on the Continent in important\nmissions and affairs, and had been a confidential servant both to\nQueen Mary and her son James VI. He is describing the guardians of\nthe boy-king at Stirling (1570-78), and after having highly eulogised\nthe Governor, he proceeds: \u2018The Laird of Dromwhassel, his Maiestie\u2019s\nmaister of houshald, was ambitious and greedy, and had gretest\ncair how till advance himself and his friendis. The twa abbots\n[Cambuskenneth and Dryburgh] were wyse and modest; my Lady Mar was wyse\nand schairp, and held [_i.e._ kept] the King in great aw; and sa did\nMester George Buchwhennen. Mester Peter Young[2] was gentiller, and\nwas laith till offend the King at any tym, and used himself wairily,\nas a man that had mynd of his awin weill, be keeping of his Maiestie\u2019s\nfavour. Bot Mester George was a stoik philosopher, and looked not\nfar before the hand; a man of notable qualities for his learning and\nknawledge in Latin poesie, mekle maid accompt of in other contrees,\nplaisant in company, rehersing at all occasions moralities short and\nfecfull, whereof he had aboundance, and invented wher he wanted.\n\n\u2018He was also of gud religion for a poet, bot he was easily abused,\nand sa facill that he was led with any company that he hanted for the\ntyme, quhilk maid him factious in his auld dayes; for he spak and\nwret as they that wer about him for the tym infourmed him. For he was\nbecome sleperie and cairles, and followed in many thingis the vulgair\noppinion, for he was naturally populaire, and extrem vengeable against\nany man that had offendit him, quhilk was his gretest fault. For he\nwret dispytfull invectives against the Erle of Monteith, for some\nparticulaires that was between him and the Laird of Buchwhennen; and\nbecame the Erle of Morton\u2019s gret ennemy, for ane hackney of his that\nchancit to be tane fra his saru[v]and during the civil troubles, and\nwas bocht be the Regent; wha had na will to part with the said horse,\nhe was sa sur of foot and sa easy, that albeit Mester George had oft\ntymes requyred him again, he culd not get him, and wher he had bene the\nRegentis gret frend of before, he becam his deadly ennemy, and spak\nevil of him fra that tym fourth in all places and at all occasions.\nDromwhassel also, because the Regent kepit all the casualtes[3] to\nhimself, and wald let nathing fall till v[u]thers that wer about the\nKing, becam also his ennemy, and sa did they all that wer about his\nMaiestie.\u2019\n\nMelville was scarcely the man to take the measure of Buchanan on the\nmore important side of his character, but he may be trusted to have\ngiven an honest view of him according to his lights--which, in some\nserious respects, were darkness--as well as of the impression which\nBuchanan had made on better judges of remarkable men than was the\nworthy Sir James himself. The latter\u2019s preface is a charming piece of\n_na\u00efvet\u00e9_. He tells us that though a courtier he had dealt faithfully\nand not flatteringly with \u2018princes,\u2019 but had not found it a paying\nprocedure, and hints that if he had it to do over again, he might\nsail on the opposite tack. He had advised the Laird of Carmichael to\ndo so, who profited greatly by the advice, both for himself and his\nfriends, but did not show much gratitude to his counsellor, as the\nlatter complains--rather unreasonably, one would say, since, if you\ncorrupt a man\u2019s _morale_, you must not be disappointed if he treats\nyou accordingly. Perhaps Sir James recovers his honest standing by the\nhonest simplicity with which he confesses his leanings to dishonesty,\nlike the M. de Bussy whom he quotes as also bewailing, too late, the\nhonesty of his courtier career, but excusing himself on the ground that\nhe could not help it, as it was his \u2018nature to.\u2019\n\nAll the more trustworthy, however, is probably the distinction Sir\nJames draws between Peter Young and Buchanan. \u2018Mester Peter\u2019 was\nevidently no Nathanael in his critic\u2019s view, and his subsequent good\nfortune, as attested by history, shows that his character had been\naccurately enough diagnosed. There is no reason to doubt, accordingly,\nthat Sir James is equally correct in describing Buchanan as one who\n\u2018looked not far before the hand.\u2019 That is, he was not a calculating\nperson, and set his duties above his interests; did his work to the\nbest of his ability, and took his reward if, as, and when it came, but\nwas really less anxious about securing the reward than about doing the\nwork as it ought to be done.\n\n\n_A Faithful Mentor_\n\nHis whole connection with James makes this plain. It begins with his\n_Genethliacon_ or Birthday Ode, in which, after apostrophising the\ninfant prince as the hope of all who desired the unity and consequent\ntranquillity of the two kingdoms, he addresses the _felices felici\nprole parentes_ (\u2018parents to be felicitated on an offspring born to a\nfelicitous career\u2019), and under guise of a sketch, in verse of Virgilian\nelevation and beauty, of the standard of character up to which they\nshould train their child, lays down with \u2018faithful\u2019 outspokenness the\nlines of duty on which their own lives should run, and warns them of\nthe ruin which neglect of his counsel would bring. It is not, except\nin style, a courtly production. Darnley probably could not, but Mary\ncertainly both could and would see the poet\u2019s drift, and happy would it\nhave been for both had they avoided the faults against which the poet\ndirected his pointed admonition.\n\nIf James turned out \u2018the wisest fool in Christendom,\u2019 the folly was\nnot the fault of Buchanan, but of James\u2019s nature, and perhaps also\nof flatterers of the \u2018Mester Peter Young\u2019 order, who scattered tares\namong the wheat of the more worthy sower. At all events he made James\na scholar, if the latter made himself a pedant; and this implied, in\nthe circumstances and the particular case, an exercise of firm and\neven stern discipline--of which a famous if not quite elegant instance\nhas been quoted above,--and which was better fitted to improve the\n_morale_ of the pupil than the fortunes of the disciplinarian. As\nMelville puts it, Buchanan \u2018held the king in awe,\u2019 an awe which James\nfelt and resented to the last, although, to do him justice, he also\nplumed himself on his training by an unrivalled scholar. Three works\nremarkable for their political teaching--his _Baptistes_, his _De Jure\nRegni_, and his _History_--Buchanan dedicated to James, in prefaces\nas remarkable as the works themselves. All three books were mainly,\nthe second entirely, motived by the idea which Buchanan seems to have\nregarded as constituting and directing his true mission in life,\nnamely, the unspeakable value of liberty, the constant possibility and\ndeadly evil of tyranny, and the corresponding and always pressing duty\nof forestalling this possibility and resisting this evil by abundant\nproclamation and practice of the doctrine that legitimate political\nsovereignty exists only for the good and by the will of the people--a\nprinciple, of course, entirely subversive of the despotic doctrine\nof the Divine right of kings, so prevalent in usurpationist quarters\nin that day, and anticipatory of the modern and accepted democratic\n\u2018platform\u2019 of \u2018Government of the People, by the People, for the\nPeople.\u2019\n\nThis is not the stage at which to describe the books themselves--it\nis their prefaces that make them relevant at present,--but a word\nto indicate their general character is necessary. The _Baptistes_\nwas written (1540-41) when Buchanan was comparatively a young man,\nthirty-four or thirty-five, and was \u2018regenting\u2019 in a great secondary\nschool or gymnasium at Bordeaux, called the Coll\u00e8ge de Guyenne,\norganised and presided over by one Andr\u00e9 de Gouv\u00e9a, a famous Portuguese\nHumanist and educator of the day. This _Baptistes_ was simply a\ndramatic reproduction of the story of John the Baptist and his tragic\nend, the _dramatis person\u00e6_ being King Herod, Queen Herodias, the\nlatter\u2019s dancing daughter, Malchus the high priest, Gamaliel, and\nthe unlucky John himself. It was composed, Buchanan tells us in the\ndedicatory preface and in his autobiography (1574), in accordance with\nthe rules of the college, and intended by him to win the students, who\nacted it, from the silly \u2018mysteries\u2019 of the monks to the imitation of\nclassic antiquity, and the rising study of religion in its original\ndocuments. But there was something more intended. It is scarcely\nnecessary to read \u2018between the lines\u2019 to find a complete condemnation\nof absolutist tyranny, and a picture of the misery which it brings on\nthe tyrant himself as well as on his victims. This was not the kind\nof writing to please monarchs of the period. Nevertheless Buchanan\ndedicates it (1576) to the boy-king, as \u2018having a peculiar appositeness\nto his position,\u2019 warning him of \u2018the agonisings and wretchedness which\nawait tyrants, even when they seem to be most flourishing outwardly.\u2019\n\nThis lesson, he goes on to say, he thinks \u2018not only useful, but\nabsolutely essential,\u2019 for his royal pupil to learn now, so that he\nmay \u2018early begin to hate\u2019 a fault which \u2018he ought always to shun.\u2019\nMoreover, he \u2018wishes to place it on record, for the information of\nposterity, that if the king should in the future, at the instigation\nof evil advisers, or by allowing the lust of power to overcome the\nprinciples of his education, act contrary to the warnings now given\nhim, the blame must be laid, not on his teachers, but on himself, in\nnot having listened to those who gave him good counsel.\u2019 This was not\nthe language of flattery; and though James was only ten when he was\nthus addressed, the precocity of his intelligence would enable him\nto understand its import. He was destined, in a very few years, to\nbe king in fact as he was now in name, and Buchanan knew that if his\ncharge turned out other than he was trying to make him--what actually\nhappened--his own plain speaking would not be to his advantage. Knowing\nthis, he did his duty, and had his sovereign for his enemy when the\nlatter got used to being his own master. The fact reveals an elevation\nof character in Buchanan which cannot be justly forgotten in judging\nof him in other connections. It is not surprising that the agents\nin Scotland of Cecil, Queen Elizabeth\u2019s great minister, when on the\nlook-out for \u2018Biencontents,\u2019 as they were called, who might be dealt\nwith in the way of bribery with a view to forming a strong Elizabethan\nparty in Scotland, should have secretly reported (1579, King\u2019s age\nthirteen) Buchanan as \u2018a singular man,\u2019 while of \u2018Mester Peter Young\u2019\nthey say that he was \u2018specially well affected, and ready to persuade\nthe king to be in favour of her majestye.\u2019\n\nThree years after dedicating the _Baptistes_ to James in the style we\nhave seen, he dedicated the _De Jure_ to him (1579). This was a still\nbolder and more independent proceeding. Without entering, for the\npresent, into the details of its argument, it may be enough to remember\nthat, with its doctrine of Sovereignty as originating from the People,\nexisting for their benefit, and not autocratic, but bounded by laws\nto which the People have consented, the _De Jure_ must have appeared\nto Absolutist and \u2018Divine right people\u2019 generally, revolutionary\nrubbish of the most pernicious description; and accordingly, in 1584,\nwhen Buchanan had been dead two years, they had it condemned and its\npublication and circulation forbidden by express Statute of the Scots\nParliament--the King, of course, assenting, if not inciting; while,\nas we have already seen, the University of Oxford, later on, paid it\nthe compliment of having it publicly burned. Buchanan must have, in a\ngeneral way, foreseen the possibility of something like this, and the\nrisk he ran if the King should, in his riper age, turn upon him and\nseek to rend him. This, however, did not deter him from pressing his\ndemocratic treatise on the attention and study of his royal pupil.\n\nHe praises him, not in the fulsome and fawning language of the\nDedication literature of the time, but with evident sincerity and\nhonest, hearty admiration for the brightness of his abilities, his\nintellectual interests, his independence of judgment while inquiring\ninto the truth of things and opinions. He congratulates him, too, on\nhis present aversion to flattery, that \u2018nurse of Tyranny, and deadliest\nof plagues to genuine kingship\u2019--_tyrannidis nutricula, et legitimi\nregni gravissima pestis_,--and rejoices that he seems \u2018instinctively\nto detest\u2019--_natur\u00e6 quodam instinctu oderis_--\u2018the courtly solecisms\nand barbarisms\u2019--_sol\u00e6cismos et barbarismos aulicos_--affected by\nthose self-chosen \u2018arbiters of elegance\u2019--_eleganti\u00e6 censores_--who\n\u2018spice their conversation\u2019--_velut sermonis condimenta_--with \u2018profuse\nemployment of \u201cYour Majesty,\u201d \u201cYour Lordship,\u201d \u201cYour Illustrious\nHighness,\u201d and any other still more sickening title they can\nfind\u2019--_passim_ MAJESTATES, DOMINATIONES, ILLUSTRITATES, _et si qua\nalia magis sunt putida, adspergant_. Was there any latent reference\nhere to \u2018Mester Peter Young\u2019 and his courtier ways? Anyhow, Buchanan\nplainly owns that he has doubts and fears for James\u2019s future. He tells\nhim of the dangers of evil companionship, and invites him to the study\nof the essay thus dedicated to him, not only as an instructor that will\nshow him the right and wrong of the subject, but as a Mentor that may\n\u2018keep at him\u2019 in importunate and even audacious fashion, as it may seem\nfor the moment. If he is faithful to the principles commended to him,\nthere will be peace in the present for him and his, and lasting glory\nin the future. James subsequently thought he could do better, and\nthrew off his early training; but, notwithstanding, or in consequence,\nhe failed alike to achieve a peaceful career or to transmit a glorious\nmemory. The citation from the chorus in the _Thyestes_ of Seneca--who\nalso was tutor to a royal failure, although James must, of course, be\nadmitted to have been a brilliant success compared with Nero--in which\nthe great but ill-starred Roman delineates the Stoic king, appended to\nBuchanan\u2019s dedication, no doubt expresses his own view of what James\nmight and should have been: beginning with--\n\n    \u2018Regem non faciunt opes\n    Non vestis Tyri\u00e6 color,\u2019 etc.\n\n \u2018It is not wealth nor the purple robe that makes a king,\u2019 etc.\n\nand ending--\n\n    \u2018Rex est, qui metuit nihil,\n    Rex est, qui cupiet nihil.\n    Hoc regnum sibi quisque dat.\u2019\n\n \u2018He is a king who has conquered Fear and Desire. Such a kingship every\n man may give himself, and none else.\u2019\n\nIt is in the same spirit that he dedicates his _History_ to the King\n(1582, James sixteen). He knows perfectly well how his book is likely\nto be taken. Writing (1577) to Sir Thomas Randolph, Queen Elizabeth\u2019s\nrepresentative at the Scottish court, and Buchanan\u2019s _quondam_ pupil\nat Paris, he says: \u2018I am occupiit in wryting of our historie, being\nassurit to content few, and to displease many thairthrow.\u2019 Among the\nmany \u2018displeased,\u2019 he could not but foresee that possibly the young\nKing might be found, on account of the unfavourable view which, in\ncommon with most historians, he felt himself obliged to take of the\ncharacter and career of the King\u2019s own mother, Queen Mary. He must\nhave felt too that, unless James were all the more magnanimous, he\nmight take deep offence--as he did, death alone saving Buchanan from\ncriminal proceedings on account of his \u2018seditious\u2019 writings--at his now\nnominal preceptor\u2019s contention that by the Constitution of Scotland the\nmonarchy had, as an historical fact as well as by a true philosophy,\nbeen all along a derivative and limited, even very limited, one, and\nanything but a divinely authorised Absolutism, as maintained by courtly\nauthorities. Buchanan, however, prefers to assume that James had enough\nof the king and the public man in him to sink private feeling in public\nduty and accept truth, however unpleasant; and accordingly he dedicates\nhis _History_ to him, urging him to follow the example of his good\npredecessors and eschew that of the bad ones, and more particularly\ncommending to his notice and imitation the career of the saintly\nDavid I., the \u2018sair saunt for the crown\u2019 of one of his successors and\ndescendants, as a ruler who, according to his lights--some of which,\nhowever, especially those that led to his profuse and corrupting\nliberality to the Church, Buchanan, herein endorsing John Major, his\nearly St. Andrews \u2018regent\u2019 in Logic, emphatically decries--devoted\nhimself not to pleasure, or the strengthening of his prerogative, but\nto what seemed to him to be the true welfare of his people. In all\nthis, some of Buchanan\u2019s critics have thought him too stern, and that\ngentler methods might have won over James to better thoughts. But\ntruth must always be stern to those who dislike or fear it. Yet those\nonly are the real friends of these latter who give them the chance of\nprofiting by it; and in so acting by James, come what might of himself\nand his personal fortunes, Buchanan will be thought by most admirers\nof a high _morale_ to have stamped himself as a wholly high-minded and\neven heroic character.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nFURTHER CHARACTERISTICS\n\n\n_A Stoic Philosopher_\n\nWe are now, perhaps, in a better position to face Melville\u2019s further\ncharacterisation of him as a \u2018Stoik philosopher, of gud religion for a\npoet.\u2019 That Sir James knew something about Stoicism, although perhaps\nnot very deeply, is shown by his apparent familiarity with the Seneca,\nwhom he quotes in that remarkable preface of his, although only for a\nsarcastic comment upon those foolish political Stoics who, like Sir\nJames himself, throw away their Stoical honesty upon unappreciative\n\u2018Princes,\u2019 and repent of their Stoicism when too late. That Buchanan\nhad studied the Stoics goes without saying. He was as familiar with\nthe metres of Seneca and Bo\u00ebtius as with those of Horace and Catullus,\nand he was not the man--not the pedant or grammarian--to master the\nform and style merely of his author without penetrating to his inner\nthought. How minutely he had read Cicero appears from his famous\nemendation in the second Philippic of _patrem tuum_, passed over by\nprevious commentators, into _matrem_, subsequently _parentem tuam_--a\ncase in which even Gibbon would probably have admitted that a vowel,\nto say nothing of a diphthong, was vital to truth, and which gave\noccasion to Dionysius Lambinus to flay alive a rival Ciceronic editor,\nPetrus Victorius by name, for critical larceny, in having feloniously\nbut silently appropriated, first, the laurels of Buchanan who did the\ngood deed, and next, those of him, Lambinus, who had the sagacity to\nrecognise and adopt Buchanan\u2019s great performance. But Buchanan had\ndoubtless read Cicero\u2019s _De Officiis_ with not less care, and had\ngathered from its pages some idea of Stoicism as expounded by Cicero\u2019s\nown early tutor, Pan\u00e6tius, probably the most distinguished of Rome\u2019s\nthen professional teachers of this great ethical system. He must\nhave come across such a passage as this, where Cicero says: \u2018What is\ncalled the _summum bonum_ by the Stoics, to live agreeably to Nature\n(_convenienter Natur\u00e6 vivere_), has, I conceive, this meaning--always\nto conform to virtue; and as to all other things which may be according\nto Nature (_secundum naturam_) [_i.e._ other possible _bona_ besides\nthe _summum_: as gratifications of appetite, propensity, ambition,\netc.], to take them if they should not be repugnant to virtue,\u2019--a\ndeclaration which Butler, with his supremacy of conscience as part\nof true Nature, would have accepted, and in substance, indeed, has\nexplicitly endorsed. Probably, too, he had noticed the habitual\ndoctrine of Epictetus, \u2018this is the great task of life also, to discern\nthings and divide them, and say, \u201cOutward things are not in my power;\nto will is in my power. Where shall I seek the Good, and where the\nEvil? Within me--in all that is my own. But of all that is alien to\nthee, call nothing good nor evil, nor profitable nor hurtful, nor any\nsuch term as these. What then? should we be careless of such things?\nIn no wise. For this, again, is a vice in the Will, and thus contrary\nto Nature. But be at once careful, because the use of things is not\nindifferent, and steadfast and tranquil because the things themselves\nare.... And hard it is, indeed, to mingle and reconcile together the\ncarefulness of one whom outward things affect, with the steadfastness\nof him who regards them not. But impossible it is not; and if it is, it\nis impossible to be happy.... Take example of dice-players. The numbers\nare indifferent, the dice are indifferent. How can I tell what may be\nthrown up? But carefully and skilfully to make use of what is thrown,\nthat is where my proper business begins\u201d\u2019 (Rolleston translation).\n\nThis seems to me to describe the general temper and spirit in which\nBuchanan confronted the vicissitudes of life. I do not say that in a\nRegister of Religions like that provided under 6 and 7 Will. IV. c. 85\nand amending acts, he would have entered himself as \u2018G. B., Stoic.\u2019 For\none thing, he had not the chance, as only one denomination was allowed.\nNor do I think he ever said in his heart, \u2018I am a Stoic, and mean to\nguide my life by the Stoical system\u2019; but all the same, I believe that\n_convenienter natur\u00e6 vivere_, interpreted in the Stoical sense, sank\nwith gradually increasing depth into his moral nature as life went\non, and preserved him from Epicurean timidity, levity, and egotism.\nNot that he succeeded perfectly, but he kept trying to. Stoicism did\nnot, any more than Christianity, maintain that the concrete Stoic was\nfree from sins, both of omission and commission. Not Socrates, nor\neven Diogenes--most misunderstood of men, who attained the high degree\nof Cynic--would have been claimed as impeccable, although they came\nvery near it. It has been said that Buchanan in several ways allowed\nthe \u2018outward things that were not in his power\u2019 get the better of the\n\u2018will\u2019 that was, that he was, for instance, fiery and irritable, for\nlittle other reason, apparently, than that he had Celtic blood in him,\nand was bound to be so; that he was disappointed and soured by his\nearly struggle with poverty, his critics assuming that this must have\nbeen the case, because in his circumstances they would have been so\nthemselves; that he was a \u2018good hater\u2019--as if that were really a fault\nat all, etc.\n\nHad he been all that his detractors call him, that would not have\nunstoicised him, since, as already said, the system admits that \u2018no\nmere man is able to keep the commandments, but doth daily break them,\u2019\nas the Shorter Catechism puts it in questionable grammar. But his\ncensors have not sufficiently observed that if he displayed faults\nof passion, eagerness, temper, impatience, it was when he was young;\nand the fair inference is that if he overcame those tendencies as\nlife proceeded, it was by a persistent effort of \u2018will,\u2019 repelling\nthe invading influence of the \u2018outward.\u2019 By all accounts his age was\nnot a \u2018crabbed age.\u2019 Though plain, and even rustic, in appearance--in\nthe matter of dress he seems to have carried his superiority to the\n\u2018outward\u2019 to a really unstoical extreme--when he opened his mouth\nhe was a different being, courtly in manner, refined and elegant in\nexpression, humorous and entertaining, as well as instructive even to\nthe verge of \u2018edifying,\u2019 in every way a polite and variously pleasant\ncompanion--\u2018with nothing of the pedagogue about him but the gown,\u2019\nsaid a keen and competent observer, who knew him well. \u2018Plaisant in\ncompany,\u2019 says the slightly garrulous Sir James, \u2018rehersing at all\noccasions moralities short and fecfull, whereof he had aboundance,\nand invented wher he wanted\u2019--a combination, in short, of wit,\nwisdom, resource, and pith, anything but a picture of the snappish\nold curmudgeon, soured and made ill-natured by disappointments which\nhe had not wisely overcome. His letters, too, of which unfortunately\nwe possess only a few, reveal the same well-ordered and placid moral\ninterior: full of the purest friendly devotion, ready always to do\na good turn, especially to merit in obscurity, not insensible to\nthe difficulties and distresses of life, but rising above them, and\nachieving in spite of them not only contentment, but a degree of\nlight-heartedness. He was long a martyr to gout--a sore affliction, if\nsufferers from it may be trusted. But he took it with a smile. Writing\n(1577) at seventy-one to his old friend and pupil Randolph, by that\ntime Postmaster-General to Queen Elizabeth, he tells him that he is\nhard at work on his _History_, and adds: \u2018The rest of my occupation\nis wyth the gout, quhilk holdis me besy both day and nyt. And quhair\nye say ye haif not lang to lyif [live], I traist [trust] to God to go\nbefore you, albeit I be on fut, and ye ryd the _post_.... And thus I\ntak my leif [leave] shortly at you now, and my lang leif quhen God\npleasis.\u2019 The fun may not be of a side-splitting character, nor the\nseriousness very unctuous, but the man who could encounter the gout\nkeeping at him night and day in this fashion, must have practised\nkeeping the \u2018outward\u2019 at bay in a considerable variety of situations,\nand for a considerable time, and with considerable success.\n\n\n_Alleged Vindictiveness_\n\nThe fastidious Sir James seems to think that Buchanan rather stepped\ndown from the high \u2018Stoik philosopher\u2019 pedestal in being what he\ncalls \u2018extrem vengeable against any man that had offendit him.\u2019 But,\nas already suggested, Dr. Johnson, who was a tolerable authority on\nthe higher morality, would have been rather prejudiced in Buchanan\u2019s\nfavour on this very account, and would probably have wished to know\nSir James\u2019s evidence for unfavourably meant reflection, and would\ncertainly have thought that it did not amount to much. It may be\npardoned in an old ex-courtier to think it a dreadful thing to have\nwritten \u2018dispytfull invectives against the Erle of Monteith.\u2019 No doubt,\nthe fact that the subject of the incriminated \u2018invectives\u2019 was some\n\u2018particulaires that was between him (the \u201cErle\u201d) and the Laird of\nBuchwhennen,\u2019 would dispose Buchanan to do his best, because blood is\nthicker than water, and when Buchanan was at his best on an invective,\nit is likely enough that the object of it and his friends might think\nit \u2018dispytfull,\u2019 if not worse, although unprejudiced people might\nfind it very good reading. But everything depends on the merits of\nthe \u2018particulaires,\u2019 and of these Sir James tells us nothing. With\nevery respect to him and his kidney, an \u2018Erle\u2019 may be in the wrong\nwhile a \u2018Laird\u2019 is in the right, and if that were so in the present\ninstance, it was the part of a \u2018philosopher,\u2019 and especially a \u2018Stoik\u2019\none, to take an \u2018Erle\u2019 precisely for what he was worth and no more, as\nDiogenes, the champion Stoic, in the famous anecdote, whether _vero_ or\n_ben trovato_, tells Alexander the Great that, as far as he knew, the\nonly thing he (the Great) could do for him (the champion) was to stand\nout of his light.\n\nSir James\u2019s other instance of Buchanan\u2019s \u2018vengeableness\u2019 is not much\nmore to the point. Perhaps the story of the requisitioned \u2018hackney\u2019\nthat was \u2018sa sur of foot and sa easy\u2019 is not true, and merely an\ninstance of the baseless gossip that so easily gets into circulation\nabout distinguished people, and people that are not distinguished as\nwell. But even if the \u2018said horse\u2019 and Melville\u2019s history of it are\nfacts, most people will be of opinion that Buchanan had grounds of\ndispleasure. He was deprived of the \u2018said horse\u2019--there is no word of\na price, but that is immaterial--for public purposes during the civil\nwars. When the public purpose was satisfied, the animal ought to have\nbeen returned to him. In the meantime Morton had \u2018bocht\u2019 the beast,\napparently from the requisitioner or his donee, and Morton was not the\nman to pay too much for him. But when the morally rightful proprietor\napplied to have his own back, and that time after time, he found the\nRegent of Scotland standing upon his real or fancied contractual\nrights. If Buchanan and Morton were the great friends Melville says\nthey were, Buchanan was not treated in a friendly manner. It takes\ntwo to make a friendship, and by the proverb it is \u2018giff gaff,\u2019 not\ngiff and no gaff, that creates the connection. \u2018Love me, love my\ndog,\u2019 is one thing; but love me, and let me love your horse _\u00e0 la\nMorton_, is very much another thing. Loyalty is tested by conduct in\nsmall matters, even more than in great ones, and in the circumstances\nstated, it would not have been wonderful if Buchanan\u2019s feeling of\npersonal liking for Morton, if it ever existed, underwent a change.\nIt is certain that Buchanan at a particular point ceased to approve\nof parts of Morton\u2019s policy, but not for any such trumpery reason as\nthe one assigned by tattling Sir James. While Knox was alive, there\nwas a complete solidarity of public action between him and Morton\nand Buchanan, to whom the cause of Protestantism meant the cause of\nliberty. Their aim was to strengthen the position of Protestantism in\nScotland by the English Alliance, and to strengthen the position of\nElizabeth as fighting the general battle of Protestantism against the\nCatholic reaction of the Continent; while, even in spite of Elizabeth\nherself, who had an interest in Monarchical Absolutism as well as in\nProtestant freedom, they firmly resisted every attempt to restore Mary,\nthe champion of the old faith and its political tyranny.\n\nWith this view Knox, who was a statesman, and not the mere crazy\nfanatic and demagogue that he is sometimes mistaken for, winked at\nthe moral irregularities of Morton, and would even have joined the\nGeneral Assembly in making him an \u2018Elder,\u2019 if he had not himself,\nthough quite free from scruples, felt that this would have been\nputting on rather too much; while Buchanan gave him every support in\nhis power, and as internal evidence shows, wrote for him the Memorial\ndemanded by Elizabeth at the final London Conference, in which the\nright of the Scottish nation to depose Mary from her regal office is\ndefended on the same principles and often in the same language as are\nemployed in the _Detectio_, the _De Jure_, the _History_, and indeed\nall through Buchanan\u2019s writings. After Knox\u2019s death he still pursued\nthe anti-Marian and pro-Elizabethan policy, but with a difference. To\ncomplete the unity of Scottish and English Protestantism, Morton sought\nto reduce the Scottish Church to the same level with the English--that\nis, to make it Episcopal and Erastian. When he made this proposal\nhe was fully aware of the opposition on which he had to reckon; for\nalthough he made very light of the other Presbyterian clergy, and\nindeed told some of them who kept boring him beyond endurance that he\nmight have some of them \u2018hanged\u2019 if they did not take care, he knew\nthat in Knox he met a man who was not afraid of him, or any one, or\nanything else, and who was the one man in Scotland who was a stronger\nman than himself.\n\nBut when Knox was gone, he had the stage to himself, and began to\ndevelop his views, apparently seeking to use Buchanan as a tool for\ncarrying them into execution. James Melville, in his entertaining\ndiary, tells us that when Andrew his uncle returned from abroad, Morton\nsent Buchanan to him to try whether the influence of an old master\nover an old pupil and lifelong friend could not prevail on Andrew\nto assist him in more or less Anglicising the \u2018Kirk.\u2019 The idea of\ngetting Andrew Melville to assent to Episcopacy and Erastianism, or any\nmodification of them, was of course utterly futile and ludicrous. You\nmight as well have tried to marry fire and water. To Buchanan himself\nthe proposal would not appear unreasonable in itself. He was not an\necclesiastic, but a scholar and thinker to whom the struggle between\nPresbyterian and Prelate would appear a sectarian squabble, but his\ninterview with his severely Puritanical pupil undoubtedly convinced\nhim that Morton\u2019s scheme for turning the Scottish into a branch of the\nAnglican church would simply defeat itself. It would rend and desolate\nthe ecclesiastical life of Scotland--as was too amply proved by the\nScottish history of the seventeenth century,--and paralyse it for\nthe time as a power in resisting the efforts of the avowed or tacit\nCatholic League to crush that element of liberty in the Protestant\nrevolt, which to Buchanan was its most valuable characteristic.\nThis, and not \u2018the said horse,\u2019 was unquestionably the explanation\nof Buchanan\u2019s growing antagonism to Morton. If \u2018the said horse\u2019 was\nnot a myth, it might, taken in conjunction with the abortive Melville\nnegotiation, lead Buchanan to think that Morton was just a little too\nmuch disposed to convert his friends into useful instruments for his\nown purposes--an impression which would be greatly deepened when he\nnoticed Morton\u2019s great and increasing anxiety to get the young King,\nBuchanan\u2019s special charge, into his power, Buchanan\u2019s opposition to\nwhich project, for which Melville (Sir James) expressly vouches,\ncontributed ultimately to Morton\u2019s downfall.\n\nBut that Buchanan, from the alleged \u2018hackney\u2019 period, and from\n\u2018hackney\u2019 causes, \u2018spak evil\u2019 of Morton \u2018in all places and at all\noccasions,\u2019 is not only incredible when we remember the high character\nand intellectual tastes of the man, but inconsistent with the facts of\nthe situation. If Buchanan had desired to abuse Morton in a vindictive\nspirit, he had the amplest opportunity in his _History_. But what are\nthe facts? There is not a word of depreciation, but many of praise,\nmore or less direct. He does full justice to Morton\u2019s great powers and\nwise foresight, and in accordance with a rule which he held ought to be\napplied to public men, screens his defects. He describes him exactly as\nhe was, a fearless and skilful military leader, and a sagacious, firm,\nand patriotic statesman. He even goes out of his way a little to state\nfacts in Morton\u2019s favour, recording the energy and self-sacrifice which\nhe once and again displayed in rising from a sick-bed of very serious\nprostration and redeeming a dangerous crisis to which he knew no one\nelse was equal, and in relating the last negotiations which Morton\nconducted with Elizabeth and her council pays a due compliment to his\ndiplomatic dexterity and merit. Detractors have said that he stopped\nin his _History_ when on the threshold of Morton\u2019s Regency, because\nhe did not wish to advertise an adversary. But it was really death,\nnot animosity, that stayed the narrator\u2019s hand. By a weird prescience,\nBuchanan forecast the hour of his exit from time to a nicety, if such\na term may be employed in such a connection. He worked up to within\na month of his death; and then, when asked whether he meant to go on\nwith his work, he said he had now another work to do; and when further\nasked what that was, he said it was the work of \u2018dying,\u2019 to which he\naddressed himself in the fashion we have already seen--a fashion not\nunworthy of a \u2018Stoik philosopher.\u2019\n\n\n_Not so Facile_\n\nIt is of course a pity that we do not possess an account and criticism\nof Morton\u2019s singularly able and interesting rule in Scotland by so\noriginal a contemporary observer as Buchanan. That it would, in all\nrespects, have been favourable, is not likely, for the reasons already\nnoticed. That it would have been consciously unjust is incredible in\nthe light of such treatment of Morton by Buchanan as we have, much\nof which must have been written after Morton\u2019s violent and unjust\nexecution. Indeed, one could almost wish to be sure that the \u2018hackney\u2019\nstory was true, as it would show how superior the \u2018Stoik philosopher\u2019\ncan rise to petty and personal considerations when he has to discharge\nthe high function of narrator and judge of public events. That his\ndelineation of men and events would have been conspicuously able\nis as certain as any such matter can be, notwithstanding good Sir\nJames\u2019s remark that \u2018in his auld dayes he was become sleperie and\ncairless, and followed in many things the vulgair oppinion, for he was\nnaturally populaire,\u2019 etc. There is no sign of this alleged falling\noff into sleepiness and carelessness in Buchanan\u2019s _History_. The\nlast chapter is as well thought out and written as the first. You may\nthink him wrong, but you can have no doubt about the distinctness of\nhis explanation of the sequence of events and the motives and aims of\nhistoric characters, while the style in no respect falls below the\nunsurpassed standard of prose Latinity maintained throughout the entire\nwork. One grows a little suspicious of Sir James\u2019s judgment when his\nreasons for it are considered. Buchanan had come, he says, to \u2018follow\nin many things the vulgair oppinion, _for_ he was naturally populaire\u2019;\nthat is to say, he was democratic in spirit. Of course he was. He felt\nit to be his mission in life to oppose Regal Absolutism in behalf of\npublic liberty, and never let slip an opportunity of maintaining that\nall sovereignty originated from the people, and was justifiable only as\nit subserved their advantage. The courtly Sir James did not like this.\nHe was a good deal of what Thackeray has immortalised as a \u2018Snob.\u2019 He\nmight very well be called Sir \u2018Jeames,\u2019 and when he says Buchanan had\nbeen \u2018maid factious,\u2019 we must not forget that the \u2018faction\u2019 Sir J.\nhad in his eye was the \u2018faction\u2019 of Liberty against Tyranny, and how\nfar that can be justly called a faction will be settled by different\ncritics according to their different tastes.\n\nWith his soreness on this point, it is not surprising that he should\ndescribe Buchanan as \u2018easily abused, and sa facill that he was led with\nany company that he hanted for the tyme,\u2019 and that \u2018he spak and wret\nas they that were about him for the tym informed him.\u2019 That is to say,\nBuchanan did not belong to Sir J.\u2019s \u2018set,\u2019 which is not surprising.\nThe Democratic old scholar and thinker was not likely to sympathise\nwith the kind of people whom the courtier naturally regarded as the\n_\u00e9lite_ of society and the salt of the earth. Knox and Scaliger, Moray\nand Mar, Randolph and Ascham, Melville and Scrymgeour, Beza and Tycho\nBrah\u00e9, were among his correspondents or intimates; and if Buchanan\nthought that \u2018information\u2019 derived from persons of that stamp was\n_prima facie_ trustworthy, it was no more than the rules of evidence\npermitted and justified. It is barely conceivable that they sought to\n\u2018abuse\u2019 him and succeeded, but specific proof of this is necessary in\nsuch a case, and is not forthcoming. That Buchanan was \u2018sa facill that\nhe was led with any company that he hanted for the tyme\u2019 is rendered\nutterly incredible by the facts. It is one of the most remarkable\ncircumstances in Buchanan\u2019s career that he mixed with people of the\nmost opposite and irreconcilable characters and positions, while\npreserving his independence of both. There was, for instance, a time\nwhen he was equally at home with Maitland and Moray, and what is more\nwonderful still, with Knox and Mary. On the very same day when he had\nbeen reading Livy and turning verses with Mary at Holyrood, he might\nbe discussing Calvin and the political situation with Knox in his High\nStreet house; and what is more, each of them knew it. To my mind this\ndoes not point to \u2018facility,\u2019 but to dominancy. The \u2018Stoik philosopher\u2019\nwas quietly their master, because he was his own. He was not moved by\ntheir inter-personal attractions and repulsions, but passionlessly\ncontemplated them as interesting life-\u2018forces,\u2019 that he had to take as\nthey came along, and in his calm judicial presence they bowed their\nmore vehement heads. That is as probable an explanation as any of a\nvery striking psychological phenomenon.\n\n\n\u2018_Gud Religion_\u2019\n\n\u2018He was also of gud religion for a poet,\u2019 says Sir James, when\nadding the last item to the creditor side of his profit and loss\naccount of Buchanan\u2019s qualities. \u2018Gud religion for a poet\u2019 is good,\nand characteristic of the times which said _Ubi tres medici, duo\nathei_,--\u2018Three Physicists,[4] two Atheists.\u2019 Humanists, and still\nmore Humanist poets, were also suspect, and for the same reason. The\nrebellion against Scholasticism, the resuscitation of the old Pagan\nspirit in thought and art and science, involved a staggering blow to\nEcclesiastical Faith. Men whose minds were steeped in the literature\nof ancient Greece and Rome could not take sympathetically, I will not\nsay, to Christianity, but to the dogmatic system of the Church, and\neven to much of its ethical teaching. \u2018Humanity,\u2019 in the sense of \u2018the\nhumanities,\u2019 really meant the antithesis of Divinity. The Renaissance\nwas a wakening up of the human intellect, an assertion of \u2018private\njudgment\u2019 in every possible sphere of its exercise, and in innumerable\ninstances the Humanist created a faith and a code of morals for\nhimself, although for comfort and convenience he might conceal his\nspiritual interior from the view of the ignorant and the unenlightened.\nIn many an instance he held that there was one law for the men who\nunderstand, and another for the \u2018vulgar\u2019 who cannot understand. Popes\nand priests were often at heart Humanists of the most \u2018advanced\u2019\ntype, pushing the right of \u2018private judgment\u2019 to its furthest limit,\ndiscarding the public creed, and in morals, exercising, in favour of\ntheir appetites, that dispensing power which \u2018private judgment,\u2019 the\nPope\u2019s successor in so many awakened intellects, carried over with it,\nat all events extensively into practice, while simultaneously a silent\noutward conformity with the established system was carefully maintained.\n\nNot that it did not sometimes betray itself. It is a Roman dignitary\nwho is credited with the famous remark about the profit brought in by\n\u2018this fable of Christ\u2019; and everybody remembers how horrified poor\nLuther was in Rome when he heard the priests at Mass saying _panis es,\npanis manebis_,--\u2018bread thou art, and bread thou shalt remain.\u2019 The\nopen licentiousness of many Church dignitaries of those days is too\nnotorious for special mention. \u2018Private judgment\u2019 may be a primary\nhuman right and a duty owing by reason to itself of the highest order;\nbut to cast off in its favour an inveterate obedience to authority,\nis a psychological problem surrounded with the greatest difficulty\nand danger, and unless when under the control of an adequately strong\njudgment and will, may cause much wreckage of faith and conduct.\nI do not think that Buchanan suffered much in this way--certainly\nnot so much as many others among the leaders and supporters of the\nReformation; while any damage he sustained was amply compensated\nby his gains. Knox and other Reformers--I speak of Scotland--were\ndriven by the violence of the recoil involved in their assault on the\nCatholic and Feudal system into extreme positions, necessarily harmful\nto themselves, and bequeathing legacies of disadvantage to their\nsuccessors.\n\nThey needed, through polemical necessities, an authority equal to that\nof Rome, which they had overthrown, and this drove them into placing\nScripture in a position which the speculative and historical criticism\nof the last two centuries has made highly uncomfortable for many people\nof intelligence, including Broad Churchmen, whom it has driven into\ncrypto-scepticism, and Evangelicals and Ritualists, whom it has moulded\ninto wilful believers. Their denunciation and destruction of \u2018idolatry\u2019\nand every rite \u2018not appointed in the Word,\u2019 with the necessity\nthey lay under of maintaining a high standard of Biblical morality\nas a proof that Antinomian licence was not the necessary result of\nJustification by Faith, engaged them in a war against Art, Literature,\nand Natural Beauty and Pleasure, which, while it stamped the national\nconsciousness with a grave, deep, and serious habit of regarding life,\nwhich is of the greatest value, produced also an immense amount, not\nyet exorcised, of official Pharisaism, popular hypocrisy, and practical\npessimism, with all its miserable consequences. These were unfortunate\nresults of the great rebellion against authority and claim of \u2018private\njudgment,\u2019 apparently suggested, in part at least, by self-defence;\nwhile the Nicene and Predestinarian dogmas were put forward with an\nemphasis and detail which would not be attempted in the present day,\nbut were very seasonable in times when immaculate and even strained\northodoxy was both weapon and armour in a degree that does not prevail\nnow.\n\nKnox, it must be remembered, did not discourage the belief that he\ncould predict the future and had a good deal of the \u2018second-sight\u2019\nin him. He had a powerful political instinct, and he and his chief\nassociates knew that if they went \u2018too far\u2019 in their destructions, the\nalarm would be taken, and the life and death struggle in which they\nwere engaged would for them be lost for ever; and every man of any\ndepth of thought or feeling is aware that the \u2018doctrines of grace,\u2019 in\ntheir inner, perhaps mystical, interpretation, and apart altogether\nfrom the stupendous metaphysical and historical setting assigned\nthem in systems of Christian dogma, have a consoling, strengthening,\nand guiding influence on that vast body of serious, simple, if often\npractically powerful natures, to whom Criticism is neither a necessity\nnor a possibility. Such a union of accommodation and exaggeration\nneed not be construed as of set purpose propositional in form, and\ndeliberate in execution. In the transition from authority to private\njudgment initiated by Humanism and the Renaissance generally, special\nReformation exigencies may be conceived as leading to such a union, so\nthat in thought and action it was only semi-conscious and instinctive,\nand there was little time for the minuti\u00e6 of introspective scrutiny.\nOn the ethical side, however, there was no Renaissance loosening among\nthe mass of the leading Reformers. The value of the controversial\nmendacities propagated about the morals of Knox may be judged of by\nthe fact that the coryph\u00e6us of the revilers maintained that he won his\nsecond wife by magic! As a rule they kept the ten commandments, and\nespecially the seventh, rigidly. They failed a good deal on the new\none of Charity. They preached the \u2018Gospel\u2019 with technical accuracy,\nbut they mostly practised the \u2018Law,\u2019 and if Paul had returned among\nthem, he would probably have re-edited his Epistle to the Romans, with\nup-to-date applications, as indeed he might have to do still.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nBUCHANAN AND CALVINISM\n\n\nIn Buchanan\u2019s case, the revolt from authority seems to have produced\ndifferent effects. As regards dogma, it appears to have led him into\nan attitude of mind that was mainly negative. He had none of the\n\u2018Evangelical\u2019 fervour which marked the utterances of Knox, Luther,\nCalvin though to a less degree, and the Reforming preachers of\nScotland. He never preached, in the popular sense of the word, although\nas Principal of St. Leonard\u2019s and \u2018doctor in the schools\u2019 he could\neasily have had himself \u2018called\u2019 and ordained, if he had been animated\nby any zeal for the function. He could not have written such letters\nas Knox wrote, full of pious sentiment and sympathy, in phraseology\nthat was absolutely unctuous, to Mrs. Bowes, and Mrs. Locke, and other\nwomen, who leant on him for a sort of semi-priestly or confessorial\nguidance. He was a critic, not a sentimentalist. You may read his whole\nworks through, prose and poetry both, without knowing that he laid\nany stress on the Calvinism of the Scottish Church, except on its\ndestructive side. Indeed, much of his literary work was done before\nhe openly and formally broke with Rome, which he was in no hurry to\ndo. He satirises the clergy, especially the monks, and ridicules such\ndoctrines as those of Indulgences and Transubstantiation, the latter\nespecially in the _Franciscanus_, where it is stated with a grossness\nand extravagance of literalism which would probably be disowned by\nthe highest order of Catholic dogmatist. As the _Franciscanus_ was\npublished, after revision and completion, in his Protestant days, this\nmay have been an addition of the period; but nowhere, in anything he\nwrote during the Protestant part of his career, does he emphasise,\nor almost even allude to, such doctrines as Justification by Faith,\nthe Incarnation, the Atonement, Election, and Reprobation, or any of\nthe positive dogmatic propositions most prominently characteristic of\nScottish Protestantism.\n\n\n_Not a Zealot_\n\nIt is remarkable that in his _History_ he associates the Reformers\nless with _Evangelium_ than with _Libertas_. They are the _vindices\nlibertatis_--\u2018the champions of liberty\u2019--quite as much or oftener than\nthe _Evangelii professores_--\u2018the professors of the Evangel,\u2019--from\nwhich it might seem that for Buchanan, not the least valuable aspect\nof Protestantism lay in its being a struggle for liberty--a view in\nwhich a good many other people will be ready to concur. Queen Mary, in\nher later years, protesting against Buchanan\u2019s appointment as her son\u2019s\ntutor, described him, in writing, as an \u2018Atheist\u2019; but that was in the\nsense in which Athanasius described Arius as an atheist, and is said to\nhave seized an opportunity of striking him in the jaw in that capacity,\nto show what he thought of it and him. Arius, however, constantly\nprofessed himself a believer in \u2018God, the Father Almighty,\u2019 under, of\ncourse, \u2018heretical\u2019 modifications; but Athanasius thought that a wrong\nGod--that is, a God that was not God, according to Athanasius--was no\nGod, and spoke and acted accordingly. Buchanan was certainly no atheist\nin his own sense and intention, which, it must always be remembered,\nwas essentially of a deep-sea seriousness, although the wavelets of\nwit might often dance and gleam on its surface. He manifestly held by\nsome Almighty Power called by him God, _Deus_, _Numen_, _Providentia_;\nbut whether this was the God of Mary Stuart, or the anthropomorphic\nGod of Calvin, or the accommodation to the popular sense of reverence\nascribed by many people, and not without reason, to Carlyle, might form\na subject of discussion.\n\nBearing on this matter, passing allusion may be made to the Dirge or\n_Epicedium_, as he called it, which Buchanan wrote on the death of\nCalvin (1564), an event which occurred some three years, more or less,\nafter Buchanan had publicly become a Protestant, when he was already a\nmember of the General Assembly, sitting cheek-by-jowl with Knox, and\non the Assembly\u2019s judicial committee; the year when Mary, having been\nfinally off with the Spanish Don Carlos marriage, was drawing towards\nthe Catholic Darnley marriage, which Knox, correctly scenting on the\nway, was beginning to anathematise by anticipation, he having the\nyear before fiercely denounced from the High Kirk pulpit the Spanish\nalliance as fatal to Scotland, because it was an \u2018infidel\u2019 marriage,\nand \u2018all Papists are infidels,\u2019 said the uncompromising one, in the\ntrue Athanasian vein, on the head of which he had quarrelled with Mary\nand Moray also; while all the time Buchanan was, to Knox\u2019s knowledge,\ncontinuing to act as Mary\u2019s Court poet, and possibly meditating on\nthe \u2018Pompa\u2019 or masque for her wedding, and getting on so well with\nher that she was arranging for giving him that \u00a3500 (Scots) pension\nfrom Crossraguel Abbey, out of which it cost him such excruciating\ndifficulty to get anything at all, at the same time that he was helping\nthe General Assembly to revise the _Book of Discipline_, translating\nSpanish despatches for the Privy Council, and generally acting as\n\u2018handy man\u2019 on the highest planes all round. This \u2018Dirge\u2019 is too long\nfor quotation: a curious attempt to combine the Pagan spirit and the\nCalvinistic theology--spiritual elevation and sarcastic wit in the best\npoetic form. \u2018Those who believe that there are no _Manes_, _i.e._ no\nhereafter, or if they do, live despising Pluto and the trans-Stygian\npenalties, may well deplore their coming fate, while they leave\nsorrow to surviving friends. But we have no such grief over our lost\nCalvin. He has passed beyond the stars, and, filled with a draught of\nDeity (_Numinis_), lives in an eternal and nearer enjoyment of \u201cGod\u201d\n(_Deo_). But Death has not taken all of him from us. We have monuments\nof his genius and his fame wherever the Reformed religion has spread.\nWe have the terror which he struck, and which his name will continue\nto strike, into your Popes--your Clements and Pauls, and Juliuses\nand Piuses; while we know that the Pontiff tyrant of fire and sword\nwho appropriated all the functions of the nether kingdom--becoming\na Pluto in empire, a Harpy in his shameful extortions, a Fury in\nhis martyr-making fire, a Charon in his viaticum (_Charon naulo_),\nand a Cerberus in his mitre (_triplici corona Cerberus_)--will have\nto appropriate the penalties also of the same lower world, becoming\na Tantalus thirsty amidst waters, a Sisyphus rolling back the\never-recurring stone, a Prometheus with vultures ceaselessly pecking\nat his liver, a Danaid vainly filling her empty bucket, and an Ixion\ntwisted into a circle on his endless wheel.\u2019\n\n_\u00c0 propos_ of Calvin\u2019s \u2018draught of Deity,\u2019 Buchanan gives in the course\nof the poem what seems to be meant for an explanation of the spiritual\nwork of \u2018regeneration,\u2019 which, I am afraid, would not have been so\nsatisfactory to Mess John Davidson as some others of his efforts to\npropitiate that sound divine. As the soul animates the body, otherwise\na mass of clay--_sic animi Deus est animus_--so \u2018\u201cGod\u201d is the Soul of\nthe soul,\u2019 and when the _Numinis haustus_, the \u2018draught of Deity,\u2019 has\nbeen taken, the soul which before was \u2018shrouded in darkness, illusioned\nby empty appearance, and grasping at mere shadows of the \u201cright and\ngood,\u201d\u2019 sees the \u2018darkness disappear, the vain \u201csimulacra\u201d cease, the\nunveiled face of \u201ctruth\u201d reveal itself in light.\u2019 I may be wrong, but\nthis looks to me more like a Pantheistic theory of \u2018illumination\u2019\nthan the \u2018regeneration\u2019 of the Calvinistic creeds! Besides, there is\nno word of \u2018sin,\u2019 and the change to at least an incipient \u2018holiness\u2019\nonly from \u2018_illusion_\u2019 to \u2018truth\u2019 (_verum_). If it be said that this\nmust be assumed, then a new contradiction of Calvinism arises, since\na divine Soul of the soul cannot will evil, and \u2018sanctification\u2019 is\nthus erroneously made out to be an instantaneous act and not a gradual\nprocess. Altogether, and as it stands, the passage might have been\nwritten by one of those later Stoics, including possibly Aurelius\nhimself, who seem to have believed in the indwelling Divinity, and that\nthe souls of good men at death were not immediately reabsorbed into the\nAll, but lived with \u2018God,\u2019 in some cases a thousand years, in others\nfor ever, or, at all events, until the \u2018philosopher\u2019s year\u2019 was over,\nand the new cycle began to repeat the history of the old.\n\nBut there is one omission which, among various others, seems\nremarkable. Of the relics enumerated by Buchanan as left by Calvin,\nhe passes over the most important of all--Calvin\u2019s own body. He\nmakes no reference to the resurrection. Yet, on orthodox principles,\nCalvin\u2019s glory and beatitude could not be complete until that event.\nIf Calvin had been writing about Buchanan, instead of _vice versa_,\nhe would not have forgotten the matter, for he laid great stress upon\nit. \u2018He alone,\u2019 he says, \u2018has made solid progress in the Gospel,\nwho has acquired the habit of meditating continually on a blessed\nresurrection.\u2019 Buchanan\u2019s silence here and on other points that have\nbeen mentioned, and the scantiness, brevity, for the most part simply\nTheistic references he makes to matters of faith, are significant.\nHe clearly was not zealous about most of those doctrines on which\nthe Reforming preachers placed the greatest emphasis. His training\nand wide intellectual illumination must have stood in the way of his\nsympathising with the more violent among them, probably not excepting\nKnox himself occasionally. In this connection one thinks of another\nillustrious son of the Renaissance, Erasmus, Buchanan\u2019s senior by forty\nyears. After all he had said and done, the Protestants demanded, with\nloud reproaches, that he should publicly join their ranks. Erasmus\nwould not, perhaps could not. The alternate violence and unctuousness\nof the Evangelicals repelled him as much as the ignorance, and\nworse, of the monks disgusted him. With certain reforms in morals,\nconstitution, and discipline, he did not see why the old Church should\nnot be satisfactorily worked on the lines of the traditional doctrine\nand ritual. Probably he thought that if a man could reconcile himself\nto the Nicene dogmas and their consequences, it was not worth his\npains boggling over Transubstantiation. Although any one may see that\nhis heart was in many things with the Reform movement, he had never\ndirectly and openly denied any dogma. Apparently he was not prepared in\nhis own mind to do so.\n\nIf a man is asked, \u2018Do you deny that Abracadabra is Mesopotamia?\u2019 he\ncan probably say \u2018No\u2019 quite conscientiously; and there can be no doubt\nthat this attitude of non-denial is widely accepted for positive faith.\nThe Roman Church, and the Roman Empire before it, were quite willing to\ntake it so. If a man would hold his peace, they would let him alone.\nErasmus condemned the outbreak of Luther, whose faith in the immense\namount of doctrine he left untouched he perhaps regarded as simply a\nhuge faculty of taking things for granted, ending in straining at the\ngnat and swallowing the camel. For myself, as one of the crowd, I am\nglad that with all his blunders and shortcomings, so easy to point out\nat this distance, Luther took his own way, and did what he did. Truth\nis greater than peace. \u2018Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall\nmake you free,\u2019 is the method of Christianity, unless the Founder of it\nis mistaken. The martyrs had faults and weaknesses--say even that they\nwere mistaken,--but they were men of nobler spirit, and did more for\nus and our liberties than the _traditores_, the \u2018traitors\u2019 who handed\nover their Scriptures to the Pr\u00e6tor rather than face the lions. Up to\na certain point, Buchanan\u2019s attitude seems to have been practically\nthat of Erasmus. He tells us himself in his _Autobiography_, that while\na student at the University of Paris (1526-29, pp. 20-23) he \u2018fell\ninto the spreading flame of the Lutheran sect.\u2019 Several years later\n(1535-38), while resident in Scotland, he wrote some satirical verses\non the Franciscan monks, which the brethren took in high dudgeon, very\nmuch to Buchanan\u2019s astonishment--boys always are astonished that frogs\nshould object to the pleasant amusement of being stoned,--and gave him\nso much annoyance, ending in his having to flee the country for his\nlife, as to make him, in his own words, \u2018more keenly hostile to the\nlicentiousness of the clergy, and less indisposed to the Lutheran cause\nthan before.\u2019\n\n\n_Silent Doubt_\n\nAll this time, however, he appears not to have attacked or denied\nanything in creed or ritual, although there cannot be a doubt that\nhe had his own secret doubts. The relentless persecution of the\nmonkish enemies he had made for himself at last brought him before the\nInquisition (1548) at Coimbra, in Portugal, where he was acting as\n\u2018Regent\u2019 in a college recently founded by the King; but although the\nInquisitors had him through their hands several times, they discovered\nnothing against him that could properly be called heretical. He was\nsaid to have eaten flesh in Lent, but everybody did it there, when\nthey could get it. He was said to have given it as his opinion that on\nthe Eucharistic controversy Augustine\u2019s opinions were more favourable\nto the Lutherans than to the Church; but that was merely literary or\nhistorical criticism, not heresy. Two young gentlemen testified that\nBuchanan was not at heart a good Catholic--which was probably true\nenough, but was not specific. So they shut him up, as already said,\nin a monastery to be taught by monks, who, though good fellows, did\nnot know anything; and for want of something better to do, Buchanan\nmade his famous Latin paraphrase of the Psalms. What must his Faith\nhave been during those years? Manifestly, like that of Erasmus, less\na positive assent than an abstinence from denial. Would he deny\nTransubstantiation or the Trinity? No, he was not ready to do anything\nof the kind--anyhow, not yet.\n\nIt need not be maintained that in all this Buchanan, or Erasmus either,\nwas merely seeking to save his own skin. He may have thought that it\nwas best for the order and edification of society to let things alone.\nProbably too, by this time, that spirit of Stoicism, which I have shown\nreason for believing sank deeper into Buchanan\u2019s nature as time went\non, was beginning to assert itself. And here, in passing may I say\nthat the common popular image of the Stoic as a gloomy, unbending,\nsour, cantankerous, repulsive curmudgeon, is a mistake. There is\nnothing in Stoicism to make him so, and as a matter of fact he was\nnot so. Aurelius was a finished gentleman. Seneca had all the culture\nof his time, and was the poet of the day. Bo\u00ebtius was a polished\ncourtier. When Buchanan went over to the Reformers, it was the smartest\nepigrammatist going who was joining the most advanced party and leaving\nthe \u2018stupid\u2019 party behind. To return. It was a well-known rule of the\nStoics not to quarrel with the popular beliefs, but, if possible, to\nutilise them for good, as we see Buchanan does with the Pagan mythology\nin his Dirge on Calvin\u2019s death. Socrates, their model wise man,\nteaches conformity to the cult of the city where the sage resides; and\neverybody will recollect the care with which, as his trial approached,\nhe arranged that Esculapius should have the cock that was due him.\nProbably Esculapius is still receiving a good deal of that class of\npoultry. For a long time--indeed until he was fifty-five, the last five\nof which he spent in carefully scrutinising and balancing theological\ncontroversies, and examining the whole situation--Buchanan followed the\nlines of Erasmus, used the cult of the Roman Esculapius to go on with,\npending eventualities. But when the termination of the Guisian tyranny\nin Scotland made it safe for him to return, he had to make up his mind\nwhether he was to side with the cause of oppression as advocated by the\nChurch in which he had been born and lived up to now, or that in which,\nthough unfortunately with certain drawbacks, a battle was being fought\nfor liberty to express opinions different from those taught by the\nChurch. Nobody who knew Buchanan could doubt what his choice would be.\n\nThe transition would be all the easier that in his new quarters he\nwould find much less to offend his philosophic reason than in his\nold ones; but would there not be an occasional bird to be sacrificed\nstill? He had been doing it all his Catholic life. Was it completely\nover now? That is not likely. But, however that may be, Buchanan was\nthe least dogmatic and the most tolerant of all the theologically\ninstructed men who helped to give Protestantism its place in Scotland.\nHe might have preached had he chosen, but as he shrank from priest\u2019s\norders in the Catholic Church, so he shrank in the Protestant from a\nposition in which he would be bound to dogmatise. He did not frown upon\nMary\u2019s private Mass, while Knox denounced it as worse than ten thousand\narmed opponents. When he narrates the hanging of a priest, according\nto statute, for saying Mass a third time, he does not exult, as was\nno doubt done by the men of the \u2018Congregation,\u2019 and possibly by Knox\nhimself, when they heard of the happy event. There is nothing about him\nof the zeal of the renegade, who often out-Herods Herod in championing\nhis new faith--a tendency from which Knox was by no means free. In\nhis _History_ he evidently tries to hold the balance fair between\nCatholic and Protestant, and is as just to Mary of Guise as to Moray.\nHis whole religious career points to a man who thought profoundly and\ninquired anxiously after truth, and was careful to give expression to\nhis feeling of reverence for the mystery of being by outward conformity\nwith a creed and ritual to which he could more or less reconcile his\nreason. Well might James Melville (Rev., not Sir) describe him not\nonly as a \u2018maist learned and wyse,\u2019 but also as a \u2018maist godlie\u2019\nman, although he himself might have preferred \u2018spiritual\u2019 as a more\ncomprehensive epithet.\n\nIt may be objected that men like Buchanan and Erasmus did not act\nhonestly in remaining silent and conforming members of a system\nwhich they secretly regarded as in many vital respects false, and an\nimposture upon the world. Of course, it is to be said for Buchanan that\nhe did ultimately come out of it; but then, why not sooner? Why did he\nnot earlier follow the lead of Luther and Calvin and Knox? For one\nthing, it must be remembered that even these great heroes of veracity\nhad probably their reticences. At all events, they have left to us\nthe legacy of an incompletely performed work. Was their outspokenness\nequal to Christ\u2019s? His brought Him to the cross. It seems to be in the\nnature of the Ideal that to make an utterly clean breast of it should\nbe perilous or fatal to its revealer, and the hero of Truth who dies in\nhis bed has probably made a good many compromises with his conscience\nto achieve that result. It is all a matter of degree, a comparison of\nthe well and the very well, of the bad and the too bad. A good man\nis a man who tries to be good, and a bad man is a man who does not\ncare whether he is bad or good. But man is finite, and there can be\nnothing absolute in human life, except perhaps the absolute fool who\nthinks there may. Everything depends on the state of the facts. In\nthese days, for instance, when historical and speculative criticism\nhas put Scripture and the supernatural in so very different a position\nfrom that assigned to them by the Reformers, there is too good reason\nto believe, especially in the light of intra-ecclesiastical demands\nfor the revision of Confessions and Articles, that many of the clergy\nfeel extremely uneasy in being pledged to dogmas which they more\nor less disbelieve. As they could not speak out without having to\nface starvation for those dependent on them, a merciful man might be\ndisposed to say that while the situation was bad, it was perhaps not\nunpardonable, and that the person implicated might still be regarded as\na good and otherwise honestly intentioned man. But if the inner state\nof mind should be one of hopeless antagonism to the supernatural, one\nwould be disposed to say that it was \u2018too bad\u2019 to remain, and that\nspeaking out and coming out, at any cost, was the duty of the position.\n\nBearing in mind that Buchanan carried his life in his hand, and that\nhe had never undertaken the function of religious teacher, only a very\nheroic person could afford to say that he had not done all he dared,\nand that he showed himself deeply in earnest about Truth, when at last\nhe had the opportunity, and really \u2018was of gud religion for a poet,\u2019\nand even for a more hopeful character. Buchanan, on the intellectual\nside of him, was not merely a poet, but a wit and humorist--a type of\nmind not in itself easy to harmonise with being of \u2018gud religion.\u2019\nPerhaps if the Puritans had not been in so many cases hopelessly\nwooden, it might have saved their cause from having so many joints in\nits harness open to the shafts of the satirical sharpshooter, but they\nwould probably not have done so great and grave a work in the world.\nDire, however, are the fruits of an igneous temperament and a ligneous\nintellect, and Praise-God Barebones and Co. have done an evil turn to\na good undertaking. The capacity and habit of seeing and enjoying the\nludicrous are a temptation to their possessor to forget that life has\nits serious aspect also, and in too many instances this seems to be\nforgotten. Hence the presumption is against the laugher until he has\nbecome better known. I recollect once hearing a celebrated preacher\ngive a highly comical account of his own conversion, and albeit not\ngiven to the frowning mood, I could not help asking myself whether this\ncould be a serious man; and it was not until I read his life that I saw\nhe knew that there is a time for everything under the sun, and that he\npossessed the secret of assigning its due claim to all views of life.\nBuchanan, too, had mastered this power--for it requires an effort of\nwill, and there must always be an essential difference between the\nhumorous man\u2019s view of religion, and that of the man who cannot show\nhis teeth by way of smile, though Nestor swear the jest be laughable.\nBuchanan could sparkle when sparkling was in place, but he could also\nbe depended on when grave or even grim work was in request.\n\n\n_Renaissance Morals_\n\nPart of the price paid for the enlightenment of the Renaissance\nwas that in too many instances its breadth of ethical as well as\nintellectual outlook was allowed by its possessor to sink into a\npractical licentiousness, open or concealed, that corrupted, or even\ntotally destroyed, the moral and spiritual faculties. I cannot see\nproof of any such results in Buchanan\u2019s case. I think he was careful\nto secure himself from danger on this side of his temptations. His\nbitterest detractors do not raise a whisper against him here. But there\nis a section of his poetry which may best be characterised as of the\n_Ad Ne\u00e6ram, In Leonoram (Lenam), Ad Gelliam, Ad Briandum Vallium pro\nLena Apologia_ order, which has occasioned misgiving to some of his\nfriends. One biographer, a very competent authority on this period of\nScottish history, says, somewhat severely, that these pieces ought not\nto have been written by the man who wrote _Franciscanus_--a powerful\nsatire on the vices and hypocrisy of the monks. I must say that, with\nevery deference to a critic highly worthy of respect, I am not able to\nsee it. The _Franciscanus_ was essentially an exposure of dishonesty,\nnot so much of the vices practised under the cowl, as of the shameful\ntrickery of using the cowl to cloak them. As far as honesty and\nconsistency go, there is no reason why an honest and consistent man\nshould not have written every word of these \u2018Lena\u2019 sketches. Even from\nan artistic point of view they will stand inspection. The subject,\nof course, is a revolting one, and so is Dame Quickly--but would any\nman of average robustness of mind wish Dame Quickly unwritten? Many\npeople seem to forget that while the real itself may be unpleasant,\nthe artistic image of the real may be a delight. We should shrink\nfrom Caliban in the flesh, but Shakespeare throws a charm over him;\nPandemonium is not, I believe, a sweet scene, but Milton\u2019s account of\nit is sublime; Falstaff was disreputable, but he makes an admirable\nstage figure; a corpse is an unlovely object, but Rembrandt\u2019s\n\u2018Dissectors\u2019 has a fascination.\n\nProbably it was for want of noting this distinction that the late\nPrincipal Shairp, who was a good judge of a certain class of poetry,\nlamented that Burns should have written _Holy Willie\u2019s Prayer_ and\nthe _Jolly Beggars_!--a remark which led Louis Stevenson, in a\ncompassionating way, to hint that Burns was perhaps too \u2018burly\u2019 a\nfigure for the Principal\u2019s microscope. There is a good deal of this\n\u2018burliness\u2019 in Buchanan\u2019s _Leonoras_, which in point of graphic power\nare second only to the _Jolly Beggars_, while their savage and even\nhideous realism, contrasting with the elegance of the Latin line,\nproduce a piquant effect from the mere point of view of art. But I\ndemur to any suggestion that these or any of Buchanan\u2019s so-called\n\u2018amorous\u2019 poetry are corrupting or intended to be, or that they exhibit\nany gloating over the degrading or the degraded on the part of the\nwriter. From references in them I believe they were satires written for\nthe warning of \u2018college\u2019 youth, and resembled certain passages in the\nBook of Proverbs and elsewhere in the Bible, where certain counsels,\nhighly necessary and practical, are conveyed in language not deficient\neither in directness or detail. They could not possibly scandalise\nor tempt any one, being written in Latin. Mr. Podsnap and the \u2018young\nperson\u2019 would pass equally scatheless, for they could not read them.\nOnly men who could construe and scan Horace could understand them, and\nthese might be trusted to see their true drift. Then the _Ad Gelliam_\nverses were merely playful little satires upon ladies who painted,\nor wore brass rings and glass gems, which might amuse readers, while\nproducing no effect, good or evil, upon their subjects. As to the\n_Ne\u00e6ra_ series, they are not love-poems at all, but epigrams. There is\nno passion, sensuous or otherwise, in them. What show of manufactured\nemotion there may be is simply a stage-scaffolding on which to plant\nand fire off the epigram. Probably the best known of the series is the\nfollowing:--\n\n    \u2018Illa mihi semper pr\u00e6senti dura Ne\u00e6ra,\n      Me quoties absum semper abesse dolet;\n    Non desiderio nostri, non m\u0153ret amore,\n      Sed se non nostro posse dolore frui\u2019;\n\nwhich James Hannay, who was well able to appreciate this class of work,\ntranslated thus:--\n\n    \u2018Ne\u00e6ra is harsh at our every greeting,\n      Whene\u2019er I am absent, she wants me again;\n    \u2019Tis not that she loves me, or cares for our meeting,\n      She misses the pleasure of seeing my pain\u2019;\n\nadding that \u2018M\u00e9nage used to say that he would have given his best\nbenefice to have written the lines--and M\u00e9nage held some fat ones.\u2019\nWhat anchorite could discover anything exceptionable here, or if he\nhad any intelligence left, could fail to perceive that it was simply\na case for admiring extreme cleverness of thought and smartness of\nphrase? If any one desires to see how Buchanan could appreciate and\naddress the highest type of womanhood, let him read such verses as the\n_Ad Mildredam_ or the _Ad Camillam Morelliam_, and he will see that he\nwas a man with tenderness in him as well as virility, with grace as\nwell as severity of speech; and the fact that in his maturer years he\nwas not ashamed to publish the incriminated poetry, showed that he was\nnot conscious of anything to be ashamed of, that he knew the poet\u2019s\ndominion was conterminous with the whole range of things, and no part\nof it whatever exempt from his critical or sympathetic function, while\nhis fiercest or lightest dealing with the facts of life is in no way\ninconsistent with a profound and silent veneration in presence of the\nmystery of existence.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nBIOGRAPHICAL FACTS\n\n\n_Earlier and Continental_\n\nBuchanan was born early in February 1506, at Moss or Mid-Leowen, on the\nBlane Water, about two miles south-east of Killearn in Stirlingshire,\nof a \u2018family ancient rather than opulent,\u2019 as he tells us in his\n_Autobiography_, so that he was delivered from the peasant or upstart\nconsciousness which, except in the priesthood, would, in those feudal\ntimes, have handicapped him heavily in the race of life. His real\nand Scoto-Irish clan name was Macauslan, but the Macauslan having\nacquired the lands of Buchanan in the Lennox, took the name of his\nproperty, and became Buchanan of that Ilk; and thus it came to pass\nthat our George ranked as a \u2018cadet of Buchanan,\u2019 as Hannay was proud\nand particular to specify. Ancient lineage, however, is no insurance\nagainst misfortune, and the Buchanans of Moss, never rich, sank into\ndeep poverty. The father died in George\u2019s youth, and the grandfather\nwho survived him was a waster and became a bankrupt, and Agnes Heriot,\nthe mother, was left to struggle with the upbringing of five sons and\nthree daughters--a task however, which she successfully accomplished,\nlike the heroine she was, as her most distinguished son gratefully\ncommemorates. Having never known wealth or luxury, perhaps it was\neasier for Buchanan to reconcile himself to their opposites in after\nyears. In the Lennox they talked Gaelic, and Buchanan picked up that\nspeech to begin with. He would also learn some Scotch or Northern\nEnglish from his mother, who came from Haddingtonshire, and in addition\nshe was careful to have him sent to the schools in the neighbourhood,\nwhere he could learn the elements of Latin.\n\nFor the old Church had not entirely neglected popular education,\nas has been shown, in a very interesting way, in Grant\u2019s _Burgh\nSchools of Scotland_, and as, indeed, appears on the face of the\nReformers\u2019 _First Book of Discipline_ itself (1560). Most of the\nburghs maintained schools, both secondary and elementary, so that\nthe barons and freeholders who were ordered by the celebrated Act of\nJames IV. (1494) to keep their heirs at school until they had learned\n\u2018perfyt Latyn\u2019--then the international language of the educated and\nof diplomacy--had abundant opportunity of doing so had they chosen,\nalthough unfortunately they too seldom chose; so that the burgh\nschools were largely recruiting-grounds for the priesthood. There were\nalso elementary Church schools, in many cases taught by women, and\nprivate adventure schools; and in these a considerable number of the\nchildren of the poor were taught at least to read. Accordingly, when\nit is said that Knox and the Reformers established the Scottish Parish\nSchool system, a little discrimination must be exercised. They did not\ninvent popular education--they found it; but they did invent, on paper,\nin the _First Book of Discipline_, the idea of bringing education to\nthe people\u2019s doors, by securing that there should be a school wherever\nthere was a \u2018kirk\u2019--that is, practically in every parish; so that \u2018the\nyouth-head and tender children shall be nourished and brought up in\nvertue, _in presence of their friends_, by whose good attendance many\ninconveniences may be avoyded in which the youth commonly fall, either\nby over much libertie which they have in strange and unknowne places,\nwhile they cannot rule themselves; or else for lack of good attendance,\nand of such necessaries as their tender age requires.\u2019\n\nSo far the _Book of Discipline_, at once recognising an existing\neducational system, and suggesting, for reason given, the vital\nimprovement of its national application! The whole scheme, indeed,\nis admirable, including as it does compulsion, the picking out\nand, in the case of the poor, supporting the class of youth suited\nfor the higher kinds of service to society, while the others not so\ngifted \u2018must be set to some handie craft, or to some other profitable\nexercise\u2019--that is, technical education, or some other form of\npractical training. I have said \u2018on paper,\u2019 but not by way of sneer,\nand ought to add in passing, that it was not the fault of Knox and\nhis associates that it remained to a great extent merely \u2018on paper,\u2019\ninstead of being immediately and effectually established. It was the\nfault and the disgrace of a different type of men. Knox, as I have\nalready said, was a politician, and made dexterous use of the \u2018Lords\nof the Congregation\u2019 to secure the triumph of Protestantism. But\nthese \u2018Lords of the Congregation\u2019 were politicians also, and made an\nequally dexterous use of Knox to fill their own pockets with Church\nspoil--I except a few, who were really noble men. They gave little for\nparish churches, and nothing that I ever heard of for parish schools.\nThe whole thing broke poor Knox\u2019s heart. It did not ruffle Buchanan,\nalthough he was probably the greatest educational enthusiast in Europe\nat the moment. But he was really a greater intelligence and a calmer\nmaster of himself than Knox, and probably knew that any one who expects\nto find more than twenty-five per cent.--if so much--of the race as\nexisting at any given moment worthy of intellectual or moral respect,\nmust either have had little experience of life, or possess a very low\nstandard of human excellence.\n\nNot till 1696 was the plan of the _Book of Discipline_ adumbrated in\nlegislation, and the successors of the \u2018Lords of the Congregation\u2019\nbound by law to provide a school-house and a salaried teacher in every\nparish. But during the whole of the intervening century and a third,\nthe Presbyterian clergy never ceased in their efforts, and often their\nsacrifices, for popular education, while at the same time fighting\na steady battle for liberty against as mean and cruel a crusade of\nAbsolutist Monarchy and Ecclesiastical Tyranny as ever was preached\nby a ridiculous and pedant Peter against a self-respecting people.\nFor myself, I fail to find much of the theology of the Covenanters\ncredible--although I must say I should like if we could hear Knox\nand Melville, or even Cameron and Cargill, on the existing state of\nthings. I think we should get some different guidance from what we\nare receiving from those blind leaders of the blind who shiveringly\nand stammeringly attempt to fill their places. For it is almost\nimpossible to appraise too highly the service done by the Covenanters\nfor the cause of liberty and popular education; and although they had\ntheir very obvious faults, one is always sorry to think that the\naristocratic and Episcopalian prejudices of Scott should have led him\nto hold them up to ridicule, while glad that a higher and juster view\nwas taken by a greater Scotsman even than Scott, when, in answer to a\ncontemptuous critic of the men of the Covenant, Burns turned on him\nwith the withering _impromptu_:--\n\n    \u2018The Solemn League and Covenant\n      Cost Scotland blood--cost Scotland tears--\n    But it sealed Freedom\u2019s sacred cause--\n      If thou\u2019rt a slave, indulge thy sneers.\u2019[5]\n\nWe go back to young George Buchanan (1517-19) at the Catholic local\ngrammar-school of Killearn or Dumbarton, or wherever else in the\nneighbourhood secondary education was to be had. The boy had shown\nsuch aptitude that his uncle, James Heriot, who is said to have been\nJusticiar of Lothian, sent him to the University of Paris, then, though\nnot quite so much as at an earlier date, enjoying the reputation of\nthe most notable of any seat of learning in existence. Instead of\nbeing required to pass through the preparatory school, he at once began\nhis studies in the Arts faculty (1520, age fourteen), his Scottish\nacquirements having apparently been sufficient to pass him through\nwhatever entrance examination was imperative. Here he spent about two\nyears, working mainly at Latin versification, which, as his reputation\nfor Latin poetry was to be the making of him in after years, was\nperhaps the best thing he could do, especially as he liked it. At this\npoint, as evil fate would have it, his uncle died, and he himself fell\nill. But as he was penniless, he had to struggle home, illness and all,\nas best he could, and was not able to move about again for a year or\nthereabouts (1523). And then it turned out that a very singular purpose\nhad entered the mind of the ill or convalescent student of seventeen.\n\n[_Here ends Dr. Wallace\u2019s MS._]\n\n\nThat purpose was to enlist as a volunteer in an army for the invasion\nof England, to be led by the Regent Albany, who had supposed wrongs of\nhis own as well as of the borders to avenge against that old neighbour\nand untiring enemy. That army, consisting of French auxiliaries and\nScottish recruits, marched to Melrose and then partly crossed the\nTweed by a wooden bridge, then, holding Flodden in memory, intimated\na mutinous resolution not to cross the border, then marched down the\nleft bank of the river, and for three days besieged Wark Castle to\nlittle effect, then made a sudden night-march to Lauder in a snowstorm,\n\u2018which told heavily on man and beast,\u2019 and reduced Buchanan to very\nbad health for the rest of the winter. Buchanan, when he came to write\nhis own life in his old age, had come to believe that he joined this\nabortive expedition to learn the art of war, which, without intentions\nmore far-seeing than those of a lad of eighteen, he certainly did, just\nas Gibbon was educated to understand the evolution of the phalanx and\nthe legions, by what he saw, in his two and a half years\u2019 captaincy\nof the Hampshire Militia, of the evolutions of a modern battalion.\nIn the spring of 1525 Buchanan appeared as a \u2018pauper student\u2019 at the\nUniversity of St. Andrews, doubtless specially well qualified both as\na student and as a \u2018pauper\u2019--which epithet \u2018pauper,\u2019 however, meant\nprobably nothing more opprobrious than a youth who required board\nand education free, like many a score of St. Andrews students, from\npoet Buchanan to poet Fergusson, who about two and a half centuries\nlater sat at the bursar\u2019s free table and said grace over the too\nplentiful college rabbits that were last century procured from the\nlinks that now swarm only with golfers. He was sent there, he tells\nin his _Autobiography_, to \u2018sit at the feet of John Major,\u2019 the\ncelebrated logician of that age; but he did not long sit at his feet\nas pupil before he felt in a position to criticise his master as a\nteacher of sophistry rather than logic. Next summer, having taken\nthe St. Andrews B.A. degree, he followed or accompanied Major to\nParis, and there passed through two years\u2019 adversity under pressure\nof poverty and the suspicion of not being an orthodox Papist. Fortune\nrelaxed her frown, and he was admitted to the College of Ste. Barbe,\nin which he was Professor of Grammar for three years. Meanwhile\nGilbert Kennedy, the young Earl of Cassilis, one of the earliest of\nScottish hero-worshippers, had the insight to appreciate his learning\nand genius, and the devotion to adhere to him as friend, pupil, and\nprotector for five years. In 1533, the tutor dedicated to the pupil his\ntranslation of Linacre\u2019s Grammar, one of the items of work done by him\nduring his professorship in the College of Ste. Barbe; and in 1558,\nafter this pupil, who had held a prominent position among Scottish\nnobles, died, probably from poison, at Dieppe, on his way home from\nthe marriage of Mary Stuart to the Dauphin, along with the other three\nScottish commissioners who had attended it, Buchanan celebrated him in\nemphatic Latin verse that is now better known than most contemporary\nepitaphs. Let it be told, however, to illustrate the cross-threads\nthat run through the web of life, that Queen Mary, on 9th October\n1564, granted to Buchanan, who had been her tutor also, and probably\nthe most learned and intellectual of all her friends, a pension of\n\u00a3500 Scots, or \u00a325 sterling a year, from the Abbey of Crossraguel;\nthat the then Earl of Cassilis, son of Buchanan\u2019s old pupil, claimed\nthe temporalities of that abbey as his own, and sometimes stopped\ntemporarily, and often permanently diminished, the pension which\nhad been granted by the Queen out of the spoils of the Reformation,\ntarnishing by pious Protestant greed the brightest page in the history\nof the earldom of Cassilis.\n\nAfter Buchanan\u2019s tutorship of the father of this grasping Protestant\nwas ended, and Buchanan was proposing to return to his old scholar\u2019s\nlife in Paris, James V. detained him to act as tutor to one of his\nnatural sons--not the one known afterwards as the Good Regent, but\nJames Stewart, Prior of Coldingham. This king, who entertained the\nidea that the clergy ought not to disregard the moral law as if\nthey were royal personages like himself, set Buchanan to the not\nuncongenial task, upon which Dunbar and Sir David Lindsay of the Mount\nhad previously been engaged, of \u2018lashing the vices\u2019 of the clergy,\nand especially of the monks. In the form of a dream, _Somnium_, he\nrepresented to St. Francis the reasons of a decent man for refusing to\nenter this order of sainthood--reasons which, because of their truth,\nmight satisfy a saint, but which also, because of their truth, would\nlikely be disagreeable to sanctified hypocrites and scoundrels. Two\npalinodes, wearing the aspect of apologies, were seen by those who\nunderstood irony to be rather stinging aggravations of the original\nsatire. After some months of a mixed tumult of priestly rage and\nsecular laughter, the royal love of fun and of virtue again prompted\nBuchanan to renew the attack, which he did by beginning _Franciscanus_,\nnot published till 1560, and then dedicated to the Regent Moray and\ngradually extended to a thousand Latin lines, which contain the most\npolished, skilfully contemptuous exposure of the arts, ignorance, and\nvices of the later generations of the Romish clergy in Scotland. It is\nstill worth reading by all who enjoy rough, boisterous, coarse humour,\nas also by all anti-Papist fanatics, even if they should renew their\nLatin studies for nine months to enable them to understand and utilise\nit. These men, drenched with satire, published and unpublished, whose\ncraft of various hues was endangered by it, of course thought that it\nwould be judicious if not just to burn its author. Cardinal Beaton had\nhim on his list of heretics,--for what heresy could be so dangerous as\ndisbelief in the solid, well-fed, red-faced exponents of infallible\ntruth? In 1539 he escaped from prison in Edinburgh[6] when his guards\nwere asleep. But being warned after the King had received the MS. of\n_The Franciscan_ that Beaton had offered this fickle monarch a price\nfor his head, he felt constrained to bid farewell once more to his\nnative country. He fled to England, but, as Henry VIII. was then busy\nburning all shades of believers that did not suit his personal fancy,\nBuchanan thought it prudent to trust his safety and his fortunes once\nmore to Paris. On arriving there, however, he found that Cardinal\nBeaton was there before him as ambassador, so on the invitation of\nAndrew Gouv\u00e9a he withdrew to Bordeaux. There he taught three years\nat least in the public schools, and wrote four tragedies for the\nannual exhibitions of these schools, to wit _The Baptist_, _Medea_,\n_Jepthes_, and _Alcestis_. In the College of Guyenne he had Gouv\u00e9a as\na principal, and as a pupil Montaigne, the celebrated sceptic, who is\ndogmatic enough to state in one of his essays that Gouv\u00e9a was \u2018without\ncomparison the chiefest rector in France,\u2019 and that he himself had, as\na principal actor, \u2018undergone and represented the chiefest parts in the\nLatin Tragedies of Buchanan.\u2019 When here, Beaton and the Franciscans\nharassed him until that fear was dispelled by the plague raging over\nAquitaine and the death of his fickle patron, the King of Scots.\n\nNext, about 1547, in the wake or under the convoy of Gouv\u00e9a, he\nmigrated to Portugal in response to the invitation of the King to teach\nin a resuscitation of the University of Coimbra that was being then\nworked out at great expense for education in the liberal arts and the\nphilosophy of Aristotle. Many of his friends, eminent for learning,\nwere there before him, and he expected to find peace in that out of\nthe way corner of the world. But Gouv\u00e9a died suddenly, and then all\nhis enemies ran at him with open mouth. He was thrown into prison,\ncharged with writing against the Franciscans and eating flesh in Lent.\nThe Inquisitors tormented themselves and him for six months without\nstateable result; and then, thinking it prudent, and perhaps honest,\nto conceal that their toil had been in vain, they shut him up in a\nmonastery to be converted to the true faith or to be prepared for the\nfagots. To the great scholar, however, the monks, though ignorant,\nbehaved not unkindly. They allowed him the truest literary leisure\nand quiet he ever had except perhaps in St. Andrews; and he devoted\nit to the so-called translation of David\u2019s Psalms into Latin verse,\nwhich are in truth artistic evolutionary expositions from Hebrew\nhints, or splendid blossoms of sacred poetry grown from the seed given\nby the poet-king of Israel to the winds of heaven, in the moments of\ninspiration occurring in a life of suffering, of passion, and of hope.\nNever elsewhere did the iron fetters of Buchanan\u2019s own environment\npermit him to soar so close to the firmament.\n\nWhen set at liberty, though the King of Portugal offered him the means\nof subsistence, he returned to England. But as affairs were then in\ndisorder under a young king, he in a short time returned to France\nand celebrated the siege of Metz in a Latin poem, not without the\napprobation which rewarded all his efforts in that line of composition.\nThereafter the Marshal de Brissac called him to Italy, and he lived\nwith him and his son in Italy and France for four years till 1560,\nspending much time in writing his poem _De Sph\u00e6ra_, and in study of the\nreligious controversies then seething through civilised Europe, and\ncarrying it into a scientific region that rendered a poetic exposition\nof the Ptolemaic system a work of futility and utterly misspent power.\n\nIn 1561 he returned to his native country, and there indicated his\nRationalistic leanings to the side of Protestantism. Nevertheless,\nthe non-Protestant Mary Stuart, of ever-living memory in the realm of\nhistory and romance, pursued her studies in Livy and other classics\nwith his help. As formerly mentioned, she endowed him with a pension\nof \u00a3500 a year. But in after years Mary\u2019s faults or her misfortunes\nthrew them into the hostile camps that tore Scotland into confusion\nand deadly discord. In regard to the murder of Darnley, he came to the\nconclusion, on the evidence of open foes and of professed friends,\nthat she was guilty. He preferred truth to the beautiful queen, and\nit is difficult to comprehend how any man capable of weighing and\nscrutinising such evidence as was accessible to him can blame him.[7]\n\nBuchanan has been accused of ingratitude to Mary, his friend as well\nas his mistress, divinely gifted and divinely appointed. He may have\nbeen compelled to seem ungrateful through the lying of ill-informed\nReformers and rogues; but sure am I that his Latin and other Humanist\nstudies with that most fascinating and accomplished of women, or\nat least of queens, gave him the opportunity of forming an idea of\nher intellectual powers and unsurpassed personal charms that no\nother contemporary in Scotland was mentally and morally capable of\nforming, and I don\u2019t doubt that this idea finds sincere expression\nin his dedication to her of his version or paraphrase of the Psalms\nof the Hebrew poet-king, without any hint whatever of kindred royal\nfrailties, or of tendencies thereto. What Buchanan must have seen in\nher when he had the best opportunity of sight and knowledge stands\nrecorded unalterably in his noble verse that rolls down the centuries,\nbearing an impress of insight and sincerity unequalled in the poetical\nportraiture of queens till Tennyson laid his dedication at the feet of\nthe most illustrious and fortunate of all her countless descendants.\nA true poet I believe to be a true seer, and incapable of falsehood\nto the extent that he has had the chance to see. But a true poet may\nbe deceived. Spenser and Shakespeare were deceived into uttering\ngross flatteries about Queen Elizabeth; but they were deceived by the\ndense atmosphere of lying by which one of the cleverest, falsest,\nmost hateful of women of all history encompassed herself. That Queen\nMary should have been no worse than she was in a world with her royal\ncousin and rival flaunting her fictitious moral and physical beauties\nat the head of it, and getting prematurely canonised as the Good Queen\nBess, ought certainly to qualify or blot out for ever all that can\nbe stated truly and justly in condemnation or even grave censure of\nQueen Mary. Therefore let the modest and honest muse of History cease\nhowling and canting about her crimes, and try to refrain from lavishing\neulogy upon her kindred in position and in blood--Henry VIII., the\nRoyal Bluebeard, and his inconstant, cruel, deceitful daughter--a pair\nof monarchs whose fickle affections led so many adventurous wives\nand ambitious wooers to the scaffold, by processes that involved the\npartial but temporary corruption of their country\u2019s conscience.\n\nThe wants and troubles of his country beset Buchanan with many a\ncall of duty, and cast upon him loads of multifarious work, such as\nperhaps never in the history of human-kind before were thrown upon the\nmost accomplished and studious of living men. The tasks assigned to\nBuchanan, and the duties imposed upon him, reflect no inconsiderable\nhonour and credit upon his lawless, homicidal, half-civilised\ncountrymen. While still friendly with Queen Mary, he gave effect\nto his Reformation convictions, by sitting and working for years,\nfrom 1563 onwards, as a member of the new-born democratic General\nAssembly, knowing well enough that it was an institution that the\nQueen would have been happy to see strangled, even before it began\nto discuss the scandals of Rizzio and Darnley with the plain-spoken\nimpudence of a rustic kirk-session and the arrogance of an infallible\ntribunal. Buchanan was one of the Commissioners that revised the _Book\nof Discipline_, and, along with Knox and others, was a member of a\ncommittee appointed to confer regarding the causes that fell, or that\nought to fall, within the jurisdiction of the Kirk. In 1567, a few\ndays after the beginning of Mary\u2019s imprisonment in Lochleven, Buchanan\nfilled the chair of the Moderator of the General Assembly, a position\nthat for generations has not called for the worldly wisdom and terse,\nimpatient talk of a layman, and seldom, if ever, so much required to be\nreminded of the limits of its power and jurisdiction as when Buchanan\nsat as its Moderator, and the head of the State was a captive.\n\nIn the previous year, Queen Mary\u2019s half-brother, the Earl of Moray,\ncommendator of the Priory of St. Andrews, and as such patron of the\nPrincipalship of St. Leonard\u2019s College there, appointed Buchanan to\nthat office, which he held for four years. During these years St.\nLeonard\u2019s, which in the first year was studentless, became the best\nattended of the three St. Andrews colleges. But the fame of the\n\u2018greatest poet of the age\u2019 could not permanently revive the fortunes of\nSt. Leonard\u2019s, nor did the efforts of the Parliamentary Commission of\n1579, of which Andrew Melville as well as Buchanan were members. By the\ntime Dr. Johnson was on his way to the Hebrides, the College buildings\nwere ruinous and forsaken, including St. Leonard\u2019s Church, of which the\nDoctor could not see the inside, because of decent excuses exciting in\nhis mind the hope that \u2018Where there is still shame there may yet be\nvirtue.\u2019[8]\n\nThe Regent Moray, Buchanan\u2019s patron and friend, to whom the\n_Franciscanus_ was dedicated, was a recognised mainstay of\nProtestantism, heartily hated by the allies of the Queen and of the\nPope. He was assassinated in Linlithgow on 20th January 1570, partly\nto further their interests and partly to gratify private revenge.\nHamilton of Bothwellhaugh was waiting for him in the house of his\nuncle, Archbishop Hamilton, with small-bore matchlock and lighted\nmatch, and the accident of a crowded street gave him the opportunity\nof a deliberate aim. His death was laid at the door of the Hamiltons,\nand it stirred the patriotism of Buchanan to write a political\npamphlet, called an _Admonition to the Trew Lordes_, in the vernacular\nof Scotland, directed against the Hamiltons and their friends--a\npublication full of practical insight, good sense, and cogent argument,\nthe work of a wise, earnest, sagacious man, who in the zeal for the\ngood of his country forgot that he had the gift of poetic inspiration,\nin that respect very unlike his great successor Milton when he too\nbecame a political pamphleteer, more rhapsodical than relevant. He\nsuspected the Hamiltons of a desire to secure the crown, and Buchanan\nvery much preferred to them Queen Mary and her son, whose birth he\nhad welcomed as a star of hope for his country. His birthday ode\nof welcome, ostensibly intended for the boy when he grew up, but\npositively in the meantime for the guidance and the warning of his\nmother, is in substance a serious homily on the duty of kings to God\nand the people, from whom their power came, and whose will and welfare\nalone justified its exercise. The essence of the _De Jure Regni_\nunderlies it, an essence never practically intelligible to the fated\nHouse of Stuart. Neither the beautiful, brilliant Mary nor her erratic\nbut not stupid race could understand the teaching of Buchanan as an\nexposition of the law of the King of kings. The fate of that race, from\nher flight to England to the flight from Culloden, has helped the world\nto understand it. They were doomed to be born in and live through ages\nof ignorance, superstition, and falsehood, in which few men arose who\ncould discover and recognise truth and publish it at their risk for the\ndark here and the darker hereafter, as was done by Buchanan. He may\nnot have been infallible, but he had insight, veracity, and courage,\nthe like of which will never be exhibited by his traducers to the end\nof time. Those who can believe him guilty of base ingratitude and\nmalicious falsehood are incapable of discriminating the best from the\nworst in human nature and in human history.\n\nBuchanan\u2019s truthfulness and resolute desire to be impartial can be\nbest inferred in our time from his _History of Scotland_, at which he\nhad written for years, and for which he had collected materials from\nhis boyhood. The style of it appears to be an eclectic adaptation of\navailable and appropriate elements from the styles of Livy, Sallust,\nand Tacitus. It wants the special charm of \u2018Livy\u2019s pictured page,\u2019\nfor Scottish places, deeds, heroes, and tastes did not for Buchanan\u2019s\nearnest, realistic, dialectical, judicial mind present inducements\nto poetic word-painting--indeed, it was after his day, before the\nfascinations of the picturesque dawned upon the mind of Scotland,\nunless it may have been to some semi-mythical, mist-inspired member\nof the tribe of Ossian. The speeches of his _History_ are the most\ntersely expressed, forcibly reasoned specimens of ancient Scottish\noratory, assuming, of course, that they ought to have been delivered,\nbut that they never were. They want the terse, pregnant suggestiveness\nof the orations of Tacitus; but they may probably appear to be not\nless skilfully adapted for the dramatic surroundings in which they are\nsupposed to have been delivered. Young students of Latin, especially\nin the Aberdeen region, have found it to be for their interest to\nread and re-read Buchanan\u2019s _History_, and it is in the original that\nthe literary art and linguistic skill of its author can be best seen.\nBut it is still worth reading, and is often read in Dr. Watkins\u2019\ntranslation, which as a translation reflects a good deal more credit\nupon its author than his old-womanly, newspapery but not dishonest\nattempt at original historical composition shown in his bringing\ndown of Buchanan\u2019s masterly story to the culmination or extinction\nof Scottish history in the visit of George IV. to Edinburgh. The\nbabes and sucklings of the school of Dry-as-dust assert that Buchanan\nis superseded as an historian; but a man of Buchanan\u2019s powers and\nopportunities can never be superseded as a narrator of the history of\nhis own time.\n\nBuchanan died on the 28th September 1582, a few days or weeks after his\n_History_ had been published. He had striven, in spite of old age,\nill-health, and poverty, to accomplish this long-meditated patriotic\ntask; and when he had corrected the proofs and given it to the world,\nhe felt that his last slender tie to life was broken, and his long,\nchequered, poorly-paid day\u2019s work was done.\n\nHis death took place in Kennedy\u2019s Close, the second close off the High\nStreet of Edinburgh above the Tron Church, as recorded by \u2018George\nPaton, Antiquary,\u2019 upon the rather reliable authority of an ancient\nLord Advocate, Sir James Stewart of Goodtrees.\n\nHis last lodging was in \u2018the first house in the turnpike above the\ntavern,\u2019 and occupied some few cubic feet of space, probably about\ntwelve feet above the existing causeway blocks of Hunter Square, an\nentirely vanished pile of tall, substantial, over-populated masonry,\npart of the crest of the High Street once, standing within a quarter\nof a mile of the vanished garden in which Darnley was found dead in\nhis shirt without mark of violence, still nearer to the site of the\nvanished house in which Walter Scott was born, and to the vacant\nair-space once filled by Johnny Dowie\u2019s vanished tavern, in which\nduring his Edinburgh sojourn Robert Burns was wont to make merry with\nselect friends.\n\nThe records of the Commissary Court show that Buchanan left no property\nexcept \u00a3100 of his Crossraguel pension (gifted by Queen Mary, and\nwithheld as often and as long as he could by the Earl of Cassilis),\nwhich had been in arrear from the previous Whitsunday. His \u2018Inventar\u2019\nexhibits him in his true character of an ancient philosopher, whether\nStoic or not. The civic authorities of Edinburgh, who from time\nimmemorial have been ready and willing to bury scholars, buried his\nbody the day after his death at the public expense. The ground of\nGreyfriars, one of the spoils of the Reformation, was then being turned\ninto a burying-ground, and Buchanan was the \u2018first person of celebrity\u2019\nburied in it. The exact spot of his sepulture is, however, in doubt,\nthough a small tablet was put up by a humble blacksmith to mark where\nit is believed to be--a tribute of hero-worship like to that in\nParliament Square which is supposed to mark the burial-place of Knox.\n\nIt is not likely that Buchanan ever asked the Town Council of Edinburgh\nfor bread, but it is believed that they gave him a stone--without any\ninscription, however, to show for whom it was intended, so that by 1701\nit was lost or stolen. His skull also is believed to be one of the\nlawful and sacred possessions of the Edinburgh University. If genuine,\nit may be a phrenological curiosity. Sir W. Hamilton once used it at\na lecture which was listened to and approved of by Thomas Carlyle. Sir\nWilliam demonstrated to Carlyle\u2019s satisfaction that the said skull,\nsupposed to be Buchanan\u2019s, was according to phrenological dogmas\nfar inferior to that of some \u2018Malay cut-throat\u2019 or other unredeemed\nruffian. Assuming this to be the fact--and my authority for believing\nit is a letter of Carlyle published in Veitch\u2019s _Life_ of Sir W.\nHamilton--I am surprised that Mr. Hosack and Sir John Skelton were not\nconverted to phrenology. But for my part, believing in the universal\nbut mostly untranslatable symbolism of Nature, from the \u2018flower in the\ncrannied wall\u2019 to the human face and form divine, and believing only to\na limited extent in phrenology as the dark side of physiognomy that is\nopen to touch rather than to sight, I should hold that the skull which\nwas inferior to a Malay\u2019s in any respect except thickness could never\nbe the skull of Buchanan; and it would not alter my conviction to feel\nsure that George Combe was present at Sir William Hamilton\u2019s lecture,\nand for the first and only time in their career of phrenological\ndisputation expressly agreed with him. Whatever Buchanan\u2019s head and\nface may have been like--and his portraits impute to him either sleepy,\nbenevolent dulness, or ferrety, peevish conceit--it is not believable\nthat his head or face could have ever resembled that of a Malay or any\nother kind of savage. So acute a logician as Sir W. Hamilton ought to\nhave doubted one of his premises at least, and been able to conceive it\npossible that the resetters of dead men\u2019s skulls may be sometimes the\nvictims of outside, as well as inside, deception.\n\n\n\n\nEPILOGISTIC\n\n\nThe sudden and untimely death of Dr. Wallace has left this volume\nincomplete, and incapable of being completed as he would have done it.\nDetailed facts are in part awanting, but they are awanting in every\nbiography and autobiography, and after the oblivion of centuries has\npassed over them, they tend to be unintelligible and uninteresting as\nlying remote from everyday experience. These, however, the inquiring\nreader, to his reasonable satisfaction, can find elsewhere; what he\nwill never find elsewhere are Dr. Wallace\u2019s ultimate, deliberate,\ncritical estimates of the life and work of Buchanan. His book, as it\ngrew under his nimble pen, grew, probably unconsciously, to be not so\nmuch an articulation of the bare bones of fact as a narrative of the\ngenesis, evolution, growth, and vitality of Buchanan\u2019s ideas, more\nespecially his ideas affecting social democratic development, and in\nparticular his capital heresy, dangerous for himself, but vital for the\nrace, touching the \u2018rights of man.\u2019\n\nFew men of any country have had such versatility of talent, and have in\nlife found tasks so varied as George Buchanan and Robert Wallace. No\nother Scotsman known to me, through credible report or in the flesh,\nhas had the personal experience that would enable him so well to\nunderstand and interpret the personal experience of George Buchanan.\nBoth were pre-eminent in the university learning of their respective\neras, which had little in common except Latin; scholastic logic and\nmetaphysic being the dominating study of Buchanan\u2019s days, as inductive\npositive science is of ours. Both were wandering scholars seeking for\nfortune, or at least for bread; each acting as tutor, schoolmaster,\nuniversity professor, man of letters, theologian, politician, and\nteacher of public men who were too ignorant or too neglectful of\nhonest rational principle to be fit to rule in mercy and in justice;\nboth were doomed by circumstances or by conscience to poverty and the\ndiscrediting influences of poverty, though fit to furnish invaluable\nlight and guidance to their fellow-men. Methinks the pre-Reformation\nchurch was a kinder, less harsh nursing-mother to the inquiring,\ndoubting, hesitating, satirical Protestant, than the dry-as-dust nurses\nof ultra-Protestantism, agnosticism, atheism, and sincere worship of\nnothing except Mammon\u2019s golden calf were to the learned literary\nman of our day who, afflicted with distracting doubts himself, and\nmany sorrows, could still give reasons for his faith in a supreme\nCreator and an administrator of the universe according to fixed law\nand unswerving right, and could help to lift the mind of his age out\nof a darkness deeper than Popery--the blackness of atheistic despair.\nBoth knew about politics as revealed in the wrangling of churches or\nreligious sects, and the strife of factions intriguing and fighting\nfor power to govern or to misgovern. The politics familiar to Buchanan\nincluded the ethics that prompted and the arts that effected the\nmurders of Cardinal Beaton, Rizzio, Darnley, Regent Moray, and Queen\nMary, and that often imperilled his own life. Nevertheless, worn out by\nhis years and assiduous labours, he died in his bed when his work was\ndone, a fortnight after his _History_ of his country was published, and\nbefore his old pupil the Scottish Solomon had time to discover all the\ntreason it contained; ordered his servant to give his few last coins to\na beggar, and left the care of his funeral to all whom it might concern\non Christian, natural, civic, and sanitary grounds, ending his long,\nbusy, chequered tenure of time with that courage and hope which gilds\nthe last sunset of those who have striven to do right and never doubted\nthat God is just.\n\nThere was no man in Scotland or in Europe that could have been of so\nmuch service to Scotland in guiding it through the troubles and storms,\npolitical, moral, and religious, of the Reformation as Buchanan, if\nthe people of Scotland, more especially the feudal lords of Scotland,\nhad been fit to follow the dictates of the broadest, most complete\nworldly wisdom, and of the clear conscience of one who had spent his\nyears in study and in poverty, who had lived the life of a stranger\nto the entanglements of foolish pleasure and the illusions of earthly\nhope, who had the most of his possible life behind him and eternity\nin no distant prospect, and who had no conceivable motive to applaud\nmurder or to tell lies. Sceptical by innate constitution, and educated\nto doubt in the schools of adversity and experience, personal and\nhistorical, he was not the man to commit himself hastily to faith in\ndark dogmas and half-explored truths; he was the man to be a cautious,\njudicious reformer, not the man to be an impetuous, frantic destroyer,\ntoo rash and unrestrained to discriminate between the entirely and\npartially unsound, too just to plunder churchmen, some of them\nprofligate, in order to enrich feudal lords skilled in few arts except\nthe arts of war and theft. Like Erasmus and Beza, he saw that the old\norder of society was dissolving; but, like all wise men, he preferred\nslow and gradual to revolutionary change.\n\nJohn Knox, in point of culture and of pure intellect and reason, was\na small man--a rash, daring, half-educated schoolboy, compared with\nBuchanan. Knowledge and reason are conservative forces, and Knox could\nnot have been great had he not been a destroyer. His most indelible\nhistorical records are the ruins of cathedrals and other religious\nhouses, \u2018rooks\u2019 nests\u2019 requiring to be pulled down only in the judgment\nof blind superstition and rabid fanaticism. For the ignorance and\nsavagery of the people of Scotland the Church of Rome was primarily\nto blame. That Church required reformation, moral and intellectual;\nbut no spiritual entity, however corrupt, can be miraculously reformed\nby the destruction of Gothic or any other architecture which took its\nform under the sincere art and piety of buried generations. Cardinal\nBeaton\u2019s mode of burning good true men to support and preserve the\ndivine truth that had vitalised his Church for centuries was irrational\nand infernal; but it was not very much worse than the mad, destructive\nfury inspired by John Knox\u2019s \u2018excellent\u2019 sermons, which, whatever their\nmerits, can scarcely have emanated from a mind that had any clear\ncomprehension of the processes by which spiritual truth makes its way\nand holds its power effectively among mankind. Beaton and Knox were\nboth powerful in their age and characteristic of it, but they would\nhave found no conspicuous function in an age that was not in the\ncourse of emerging from the mire of savagery, with all its tendencies\nto violence and to vice. Both alike were uncompromising enemies of\nindividual freedom, and equally bent upon the suppression of all\nconscientious opinions that did not concur with their own. Both were\npatriots, and of signal service to Scotland; but the evil they did so\nnearly counterbalances all the good they did (which might, and would,\nin time have been done by less unscrupulous, ungentle instruments),\nthat it might have been well had Scotland been liberated by Providence\nfrom the piebald burden of both of them.[9]\n\nBuchanan as a scholar was a very large inheritor of the wisdom of\nmany ages, the largest inheritor of that rare kind of wealth of all\nthe Scotsmen of his day. He was by nature somewhat of a sceptic, the\nteacher in Latin--and who can tell what beside?--of Montaigne--most\ncandid and sincere of sceptics--by necessity a doubter, as true seekers\nof truth, especially in dark, troubled, fermenting ages, cannot help\nbeing. He was a philosopher--a Stoic probably, as most impecunious\nphilosophers are compelled to be more or less, capable of bearing the\ninevitable with patience, and of waiting to solve difficulties by\nskill and cautious experiment rather than by violence or deceit! What\nhis worldly wisdom and great intellectual power might have done for\nthe good of his country opens up a wide field of conjecture touching\nthe solution of most of the big problems of his age. Why should the\nclever, beautiful Queen Mary not have trusted him as an adviser rather\nthan Scotch rakes and traitors and Italian fiddlers? Why should her\nrace, more gifted than most royal races, have hugged a delusion about\nthe Divine right of kings along the precipices overhanging death and\nruin? Why should the Reformers, who had the means of ascertaining\nthat among them he was a veritable Saul among the prophets, and\nneither a fanatic nor a hypocrite, not have utilised his wisdom and\nhis inspiration of the beautiful and the true to direct the course and\nshape the limits of the Reformation, without proclaiming a barbarian,\neverlasting divorce between the power of truth and the beauty of\nholiness? Why should the spiritual force and illumination of every\ngreat man who did not wear fine raiment and fare sumptuously every\nday, of the prophets of Jud\u00e6a and the sages of Greece and Rome, have\nbeen lost upon their contemporaries and left to find its way and its\nexpanding efficacy in the slow course of centuries? Buchanan\u2019s lot was\nthe common lot of unendowed, and therefore unappreciated, genius. The\ngreatest scholar and writer of his own country in his own time, one\nof the most potent of the intellectual aristocracy of Europe for all\ntime, he was a rustic in dress, a plain, unpretentious, non-assertive\ninhabitant of the European villages called cities, known to him as St.\nAndrews and Edinburgh; a man pure of life in a vicious, half-decent\nage; loyal to truth so far as it was possible for him to discover it\namong contemporaries prone to falsehood and ready for the perpetration\nof it by forgery or any other effective and not unpracticable mode,\nhe was esteemed a stranger in his native land, and not a Solon or a\nseer except by the more cultured of his own unlettered generation;\nto subsequent vulgar generations he was so unknown or so forgotten\nas to fill, in their rude Temple of Fame, the niche of a mythical\ncourt-jester and coarse wit or witling; nevertheless he holds a title\nto lasting remembrance as sure as the story of the Reformation and\nthe era of the never-to-be-forgotten Mary Stuart can give; also the\nunique distinction of being the greatest master of the Latin language\nsince it died as a vernacular, and became the immortal medium of\nintercommunication for the wide, high, and cold republic of scholars\nand thinkers, scattered through realms of ether and cloudland, and lit\nby volcanic fire and spiritual aurora fitfully lifting the night from\npeaks of rock and ice.\n\n\n\n\nFOOTNOTES\n\n\n[1] When I first heard from one of my early schoolmasters the medi\u00e6val\nchestnut, _Quid distat inter sotum et Scotum?--Mensa tantum._ (\u2018What\ndivides a sot (fool) from a Scot?--Only the table\u2019)--the reply was\ncredited to Buchanan.\n\n[2] He was Buchanan\u2019s assistant, and called the king\u2019s \u2018Pedagogue,\u2019\nBuchanan being called \u2018Master.\u2019\n\n[3] Certain emoluments arising to the feudal superior (in this case the\nking); which, as they depend on uncertain events, are termed casualties.\n\n[4] This covers the meaning more accurately than \u2018Physicians.\u2019\n\n[5] Burns appears to have afterwards written it down thus:--\n\n    \u2018The Solemn League and Covenant\n      Now brings a smile, now brings a tear;\n    But sacred Freedom, too, was theirs:\n      If thou\u2019rt a slave, indulge thy sneer.\u2019\n\nThe form may be improved, the sentiment could not be.\n\n[6] My authority is Herkless\u2019s _Cardinal Beaton_, p. 153.\n\n[7] My non-forensic sympathy, but not my full conviction, goes with\nMr. Hosack and Sir John Skelton in their chivalrous but too unmeasured\ndefence of Mary. My verdict in regard to her being \u2018art and part\u2019 in\nputting an end to that traitor in heart and deed, the good-for-nothing,\nfaithless fool Darnley, is a hesitant \u2018Not Proven\u2019; but if otherwise,\nthen a distinct non-hesitant \u2018served him right.\u2019 Skelton\u2019s clever,\ninteresting book upon Maitland of Lethington, Mary\u2019s most faithful and\ncapable minister, does not throw much, if any, light upon Buchanan.\nIn it he is treated as an opposition pleader, capable rather than\nscrupulous, who did not know all the facts, and who was instructed\nby men who had other purposes to serve than telling the whole truth,\nand who probably did not know it themselves so well as Skelton had\nopportunities to come to know it, _e.g._ in regard to the \u2018Casket\nLetters\u2019--documents that could be satisfactory to no modern tribunal\nexcept a Dreyfus court-martial. Buchanan\u2019s attack, in a pamphlet\nwritten in Scotch, upon Skelton\u2019s hero Maitland, entitled _The\nChameleon_, Skelton sneers at as a \u2018Dawb\u2019--not entirely an inaccurate\ncriticism, for _The Chameleon_ is a caricature, and that, of course,\nmeans an exaggeration of all faults, actual or presumable. But when\na \u2018chameleon\u2019 like Disraeli or Maitland, both of whom have found in\nJohn Skelton an ingenious and eloquent hero-worshipper, is assailed\nby satirists in _Punch_ or elsewhere, the only effective condemnatory\njudgment worth stating is that the caricature is not recognisable by an\nhonest enemy or a free and easy friend. For my part, I believe that the\nunvarnished truth, though perhaps not the whole of it, can be better\ninferred from Buchanan than from Skelton.\n\n[8] Sir David Brewster, when Principal of the United College of St.\nLeonard and St. Salvador, had a residence close to St. Leonard\u2019s\nroofless church. In 1853, Sir David told to a breakfast-party of\nstudents, which included Dr. Wallace and the writer, that his house\nembraced all that existed of Buchanan\u2019s old dwelling-house, and pointed\nout one particular part of the ancient outer wall thick enough to\nresist the artillery of Buchanan\u2019s day. Dr. Johnson\u2019s general contempt\nfor Scotland, which did not keep silence in St. Andrews, could not\nresist the inspiration of the _genius loci_ of St. Leonard\u2019s so far as\nto prevent his generously recognising Buchanan\u2019s claim to immortality\nas being as fair as modern Latinity can give, and \u2018perhaps fairer than\nthe instability of vernacular languages admit.\u2019\n\n[9] Carlyle\u2019s estimate of Knox I accept and credit as the estimate of\nas penetrating an insight and as true a conscience as ever uttered\nthe verdicts of history; but it is the estimate of a mind that could\ndiscover more to approve in the storm than in the sunshine, and who\ntoo readily infers noble motives from splendid results. I believe\nall the good he imputes to Knox and his life-battle for truth, and\nI don\u2019t believe sufficiently in the vileness of human nature to\nbelieve in any of the charges of immorality which rival ecclesiastics\nhave persisted in relating against him. But for all that, I am not\nblind to his human imperfections. I am far from thinking him to be a\nperfect man, much less a perfect Christian. His wild joy and unbridled\nmerriment over the dying miseries of Cardinal Beaton and of Mary of\nGuise would be scarcely in harmony with the budding benevolence of a\nhalf-reformed cannibal. His virtues were genuine, and not hypocritical,\nbut they were essentially Pagan virtues--gifts of nature, tested and\nstrengthened, but not acquired, through his experiences as a notary and\nan ecclesiastic.\n\n\n\n\nINDEX\n\n\n  _Admonition to Trew Lords_, the, 130.\n  \u00c6schylus, 15.\n  _Agamemnon_, 15.\n  Arius, 91.\n  Ascham, Roger, 81.\n  Atonement, the, 90.\n  Augustine, 99.\n  Aurelius, Marcus, 100.\n\n  _Baptistes_, the, 57, 58.\n  Beaton, Cardinal, 122, 139.\n  Begging letter-writer, 31.\n  Beza, 81.\n  Bo\u00ebtius, 66, 100.\n  Bordeaux, 58.\n  Brahe, Tycho, 44, 81.\n  Brissac, Marshal of, 51.\n  Brewster, Sir D., 129.\n  Brown, P. Hume, 18.\n  BUCHANAN, GEORGE--\n    Writings burned by hangman, 9.\n    Milton and Buchanan\u2019s _De Jure_, 10.\n    Effect of the _De Jure_, 11.\n    Relations to the Scaligers, 13.\n    Wordsworth on Buchanan, 14.\n    Porson and Buchanan, 15.\n    Milton\u2019s opinion of him, 15.\n    Hallam\u2019s estimate of him, 16.\n    Froude\u2019s opinion of him, 16.\n    Buchanan\u2019s scholarship, 17.\n    His _Detectio Mari\u00e6 Regin\u00e6_, 18.\n    The Marians and Buchanan, 20.\n    The chapbook Buchanan, 21.\n    His humour, 22.\n    Interview with Melvilles, 23.\n    The Countess of Mar and, 25.\n    Division of his life into periods of preparation and\n      performance, 27.\n    Why he became a Protestant, 28.\n    Joseph Scaliger\u2019s elegy on, 31.\n    Begging letter-writer, 31.\n    Letters to Mary, Queen of Scots, 32.\n    Letters to Earl of Moray, 32.\n    Comparison between Erasmus and, 35.\n    Hospitality of Roman Catholic days, 36.\n    His influence on cultured Europe, 38.\n    Parallel between his conduct and that of to-day, 39.\n    No loss of self-respect, 40.\n    No notoriety hunter, 41.\n    No money grabber, 43.\n    Did not seek power, 48.\n    Dates and aims of his works, 50.\n    Moderator of General Assembly, 51.\n    Various appointments held, 51.\n    Aids in drawing up _First Book of Discipline_, 51.\n    Appointed Principal of St. Leonard\u2019s College, 51.\n    Secretary to the Scots Commission _re_ Mary, 51.\n    Opinion of Sir James Melville of, 52.\n    Not to be blamed for James VI.\u2019s pedantry, 57.\n    Dedicates his three great works to the king--_Baptistes_, _De Jure_,\n      and the _History_, 57.\n    Examination of the Prefaces to these, 58-65.\n    Resembled a Scots Stoic philosopher, 66.\n    His courtly manners, 70.\n    Alleged vindictiveness towards Morton disproved, 72.\n    His policy regarding Scots affairs, 76.\n    Further disproof of Sir J. Melville\u2019s remarks, 80.\n    His religious views, 83.\n    The Scots Reformation position, 83-88.\n    His relations to Calvinism, 89-96.\n    Not a zealot, 90.\n    His views of Evangelium, 90.\n    His pension, 92.\n    His dirge upon Calvin, 93.\n    His period of doubt, 98.\n    Why he never took orders, 101.\n    Is Conformity allowable? 104.\n    Renaissance morals, 106.\n    Buchanan\u2019s amorist poetry, 107.\n    Biographical facts, 111.\n    The Roman Catholic Church and education, 112.\n    Lords of the Congregation and education, 114.\n    His early years of education, 116.\n    Enlists as a volunteer to invade England, 118.\n    Life at St. Andrews University, 119.\n    Proceeds to St. Barbe, 119.\n    Friendship with Earl of Cassilis, 119.\n    James V. invites him to write _Franciscanus_, 121.\n    Leaves him to the vengeance of Beaton, 122.\n    Escapes from prison to the Continent, 122.\n    Migrates to Portugal: seized by the Inquisition, 123.\n    Imprisoned in a monastery, where he translates the Psalms, 123.\n    Returns to Scotland and declares for Protestantism, 124.\n    Relations between Mary and Buchanan, 125.\n    Accused of ingratitude towards her, 126.\n    The multifariousness of his work, 128.\n    Writes _Admonition to the Trew Lords_, 130.\n    Characteristics of his _History of Scotland_, 132.\n    Buchanan\u2019s last days, 133.\n    His burial-place and property, 135.\n    Legend of his skull, 135.\n    Characteristics, 136.\n    Final summing up, 137-145.\n    Parallel drawn between Dr. Wallace and Buchanan, 138.\n  Burns, 107, 116.\n\n  Calvin, J., 82, 89, 90, 92, 94, 100.\n  Cameron, 115.\n  Cargill, 115.\n  Carlyle, T., 34, 143.\n  Casaubon, 13.\n  Cassilis, Lord, 51, 119, 134.\n  Catullus, 66.\n  _Chameleon_, the, 50, 126.\n  Chapbooks on Buchanan, 21.\n  Charles II., 9.\n  Cicero, 67.\n  Coimbra, college of, 51, 98.\n  Coll\u00e9ge de Guyenne, 58.\n  Congregation, Lords of, 114, 115.\n  Covenanters, 115.\n\n  Darnley, 128, 134, 139.\n  Dawes, Canon, 15.\n  _Detectio Mari\u00e6 Regin\u00e6_, 18, 50.\n  Diogenes, 69.\n  Dionysius, Lambinus, 67.\n  _Dirge_, the, 92.\n  _Discipline, Book of_, 112.\n  Divine right, 9, 11, 50, 57.\n  Dryden, John, 10.\n  Dunbar, William, 121.\n\n  Education in Catholic days, 113.\n  Election, doctrine of, 90.\n  Elizabeth, Queen, 127.\n  England, invasion of, 118.\n  Erasmus, 13, 34, 96, 99, 100.\n  Eucharistic controversy, 99.\n  Evangelicals, the, 89.\n\n  France, 124.\n  _Franciscanus_, the, 50, 90, 98, 106, 121.\n\n  Gamaliel, 58.\n  General Assembly of Church of Scotland, 51.\n  _Genethliacon_, the, 56.\n  Gibbon, 67, 118.\n  Gouv\u00e9a, Andr\u00e9 de, 58, 122, 123.\n\n  Hackney, the, 75.\n  Hamilton, Sir W., 135.\n  Hebrew Psalms, 43, 123.\n  Henry VIII., 127.\n  Heriot, J., 116.\n  Herod, King, 58.\n  Herodias, 58.\n  _History of Scotland_, 50, 57, 63, 132.\n  Horace, 66.\n  Hosack, 20.\n  Humanists, 27, 28, 43, 58, 83, 84, 126.\n\n  Incarnation, the, 90.\n  Indulgences, 90.\n  Inquisition, the, 43, 98.\n\n  James IV., 112.\n  James V., 50, 120.\n  James VI., 46, 52, 56, 76.\n  Johnson, S., 15, 129.\n  Justification by Faith, 86, 90.\n\n  Killearn, 111.\n  Knox, J., 11, 37, 40, 75, 76, 81, 85, 92, 101, 102, 114, 115, 141.\n\n  Latin Style, 17, 27, 132.\n  \u2018Lena\u2019 poetry, the, 106.\n  Lennox, Earl of, 33, 37.\n  Leo X., 84.\n  Lincoln\u2019s Inn Fields, 9.\n  Livy, 31, 51, 132.\n  Luther, 84.\n  Lyndsay, Sir D., 50, 121.\n\n  Macauslan, 111.\n  Major, John, 65.\n  Mar, Countess of, 24, 81.\n  Mary, Queen of Scots, 19, 31, 37, 40, 51, 64, 75, 92, 120, 127,\n    128, 139.\n  Mary of Guise, 102.\n  Melville, Andrew and James, 23, 40, 81, 102, 115.\n  Melville, Sir James, 52, 80.\n\n  Milton, John, 9, 10.\n  Moderator of Assembly, 51, 128.\n  Montaigne, 119.\n  Moray, Earl of, 32, 33, 37, 51, 81, 92, 121, 129, 130, 139.\n  Morton, Earl of, 73, 74, 75, 79.\n\n  _Ne\u00e6ra_ pieces, 108.\n  Nicene Dogmas, 86.\n\n  Oxford University, 9.\n\n  Pan\u00e6tius, 67.\n  Paris, University of, 116.\n  Paten, Guy, 16.\n  Pension, 92.\n  Petrus, Victorinus, 67.\n  Porson, 15.\n  Portugal, 43, 51, 98, 123.\n  Predestinarianism, 86.\n  Principal of St. Leonard\u2019s, 51.\n  Private judgment, 86.\n\n  Randolph, Sir T., 63, 71, 81.\n  Reformation, Scots, 11, 83, 85, 87, 120.\n  Renaissance, the, 83, 87, 96, 106.\n  Revolutions, English, American, and French, 11.\n  Rizzio, 128, 139.\n  Roman Catholic hospitality, 36.\n  ---- ---- Church, 28, 97, 99, 101.\n  Russell, Lord William, 9.\n\n  St. Andrews, University of, 118, 129.\n  Sallust, 132.\n  Scaligers, the, 12, 13, 30, 48, 81.\n  Scott, Sir W., 116.\n  Seneca, 63, 67, 100.\n  Shairp, Principal, 107.\n  Shakespeare, 12, 15.\n  Skelton, Sir J., 20, 125.\n  Skull, Buchanan\u2019s, 135.\n  Socrates, 69, 100.\n  Stephanus, 12.\n  Stevenson, R. L., 107.\n  Stoic philosopher, 53, 63, 66, 69, 73, 82, 100.\n\n  Tacitus, 132.\n  Tennyson, 12, 127.\n  Thackeray, 34, 81.\n  _Thyestes_, the, 63.\n  Transubstantiation, 90.\n\n  Wordsworth, W., 14.\n\n  Young, Peter, 53, 55, 57, 62.\n\n\n\n\nOPINIONS OF THE PRESS ON THE \u2018FAMOUS SCOTS\u2019 SERIES.\n\n\nOf THOMAS CARLYLE, by H. C. MACPHERSON,\n\nThe _British Weekly_ says:--\n\n \u2018We congratulate the publishers on the in every way attractive\n appearance of the first volume of their new series. The typography is\n everything that could be wished, and the binding is most tasteful....\n We heartily congratulate author and publishers on the happy\n commencement of this admirable enterprise.\u2019\n\nThe _Literary World_ says:--\n\n \u2018One of the very best little books on Carlyle yet written, far\n outweighing in value some more pretentious works with which we are\n familiar.\u2019\n\nThe _Scotsman_ says:--\n\n \u2018As an estimate of the Carlylean philosophy, and of Carlyle\u2019s place\n in literature and his influence in the domains of morals, politics,\n and social ethics, the volume reveals not only care and fairness, but\n insight and a large capacity for original thought and judgment.\u2019\n\nThe _Glasgow Daily Record_ says:--\n\n \u2018Is distinctly creditable to the publishers, and worthy of a national\n series such as they have projected.\u2019\n\nThe _Educational News_ says:--\n\n \u2018The book is written in an able, masterly, and painstaking manner.\u2019\n\n\nOf ALLAN RAMSAY, by OLIPHANT SMEATON,\n\nThe _Scotsman_ says:--\n\n \u2018It is not a patchwork picture, but one in which the writer, taking\n genuine interest in his subject, and bestowing conscientious pains on\n his task, has his materials well in hand, and has used them to produce\n a portrait that is both lifelike and well balanced.\u2019\n\nThe _People\u2019s Friend_ says:--\n\n \u2018Presents a very interesting sketch of the life of the poet, as well\n as a well-balanced estimate and review of his works.\u2019\n\nThe _Edinburgh Dispatch_ says:--\n\n \u2018The author has shown scholarship and much enthusiasm in his task.\u2019\n\nThe _Daily Record_ says:--\n\n \u2018The kindly, vain, and pompous little wig-maker lives for us in Mr.\n Smeaton\u2019s pages.\u2019\n\nThe _Glasgow Herald_ says:--\n\n \u2018A careful and intelligent study.\u2019\n\n\nOf HUGH MILLER, by W. KEITH LEASK,\n\nThe _Expository Times_ says:--\n\n \u2018It is a right good book and a right true biography.... There is a\n very fine sense of Hugh Miller\u2019s greatness as a man and a Scotsman;\n there is also a fine choice of language in making it ours.\u2019\n\nThe _Bookseller_ says:--\n\n \u2018Mr. Leask gives the reader a clear impression of the simplicity, and\n yet the greatness, of his hero, and the broad result of his life\u2019s\n work is very plainly and carefully set forth. A short appreciation\n of his scientific labours, from the competent pen of Sir Archibald\n Geikie, and a useful bibliography of his works, complete a volume\n which is well worth reading for its own sake, and which forms a worthy\n instalment in an admirable series.\u2019\n\nThe _Daily News_ says:--\n\n \u2018Leaves on us a very vivid impression.\u2019\n\n\nOf JOHN KNOX, by A. TAYLOR INNES,\n\nMr. Hay Fleming, in The _Bookman_ says:--\n\n \u2018A masterly delineation of those stirring times in Scotland, and of\n that famous Scot who helped so much to shape them.\u2019\n\nThe _Freeman_ says:--\n\n \u2018It is a concise, well written, and admirable narrative of the great\n Reformer\u2019s life, and in its estimate of his character and work it is\n calm, dispassionate, and well balanced.... It is a welcome addition to\n our Knox literature.\u2019\n\nThe _Speaker_ says:--\n\n \u2018There is vision in this book, as well as knowledge.\u2019\n\nThe _Sunday School Chronicle_ says:--\n\n \u2018Everybody who is acquainted with Mr. Taylor Innes\u2019s exquisite lecture\n on Samuel Rutherford will feel instinctively that he is just the man\n to do justice to the great Reformer, who is more to Scotland \u2018than any\n million of unblameable Scotsmen who need no forgiveness.\u2019 His literary\n skill, his thorough acquaintance with Scottish ecclesiastical life,\n his religious insight, his chastened enthusiasm, have enabled the\n author to produce an excellent piece of work.... It is a noble and\n inspiring theme, and Mr. Taylor Innes has handled it to perfection.\u2019\n\n\nOf ROBERT BURNS, by GABRIEL SETOUN,\n\nThe _New Age_ says:--\n\n \u2018It is the best thing on Burns we have yet had, almost as good as\n Carlyle\u2019s Essay and the pamphlet published by Dr. Nichol of Glasgow.\u2019\n\nThe _Methodist Times_ says:--\n\n \u2018We are inclined to regard it as the very best that has yet been\n produced. There is a proper perspective, and Mr. Setoun does neither\n praise nor blame too copiously.... A difficult bit of work has been\n well done, and with fine literary and ethical discrimination.\u2019\n\n_Youth_ says:--\n\n \u2018It is written with knowledge, judgment, and skill.... The\n author\u2019s estimate of the moral character of Burns is temperate and\n discriminating; he sees and states his evil qualities, and beside\n these he places his good ones in their fulness, depth, and splendour.\n The exposition of the special features marking the genius of the poet\n is able and penetrating.\u2019\n\n\nOf THE BALLADISTS, by JOHN GEDDIE,\n\nThe _Birmingham Daily Gazette_ says:--\n\n \u2018As a popular sketch of an intensely popular theme, Mr. Geddie\u2019s\n contribution to the \u201cFamous Scots Series\u201d is most excellent.\u2019\n\nThe _Publishers\u2019 Circular_ says:--\n\n \u2018It may be predicted that lovers of romantic literature will re-peruse\n the old ballads with a quickened zest after reading Mr. Geddie\u2019s book.\n We have not had a more welcome little volume for many a day.\u2019\n\nThe _New Age_ says:--\n\n \u2018One of the most delightful and eloquent appreciations of the ballad\n literature of Scotland that has ever seen the light.\u2019\n\nThe _Spectator_ says:--\n\n \u2018The author has certainly made a contribution of remarkable value to\n the literary history of Scotland. We do not know of a book in which\n the subject has been treated with deeper sympathy or out of a fuller\n knowledge.\u2019\n\n\nOf RICHARD CAMERON, by Professor HERKLESS,\n\nThe _Freeman_ says:--\n\n \u2018Professor Herkless has made us all his debtors by his thorough-going\n and unwearied research, by his collecting materials from\n out-of-the-way quarters, and making much that was previously vague and\n shadowy clear and distinct.\u2019\n\nThe _Christian News_ says:--\n\n \u2018This volume is ably written, is full of interest and instruction, and\n enables the reader to form a conception of the man who in his day and\n generation gave his life for Christ\u2019s cause and kingdom.\u2019\n\nThe _Dundee Courier_ says:--\n\n \u2018In selecting Professor Herkless to prepare this addition to the\n \u201cFamous Scots Series\u201d of books, the publishers have made an excellent\n choice. The vigorous, manly style adopted is exactly suited to the\n subject, and Richard Cameron is presented to the reader in a manner\n as interesting as it is impressive.... Professor Herkless has done\n remarkably well, and the portrait he has so cleverly delineated of one\n of Scotland\u2019s most cherished heroes is one that will never fade.\u2019\n\n\nOf SIR JAMES YOUNG SIMPSON, by EVE BLANTYRE SIMPSON,\n\nThe _Speaker_ says:--\n\n \u2018This little book is full of insight and knowledge, and by many\n picturesque incidents and pithy sayings it helps us to understand in\n a vivid and intimate sense the high qualities and golden deeds which\n rendered Sir James Simpson\u2019s strenuous life impressive and memorable.\u2019\n\nThe _Daily Chronicle_ says:--\n\n \u2018It is indeed long since we have read such a charmingly-written\n biography as this little Life of the most typical and \u201cFamous\n Scot\u201d that his countrymen have been proud of since the time of Sir\n Walter.... There is not a dull, irrelevant, or superfluous page in all\n Miss Simpson\u2019s booklet, and she has performed the biographer\u2019s chief\n duty--that of selection--with consummate skill and judgment.\u2019\n\nThe _Leeds Mercury_ says:--\n\n \u2018The narrative throughout is well balanced, and the biographer has\n been wisely advised in giving prominence to her father\u2019s great\n achievement--the introduction of chloroform--and what led to it.\u2019\n\n\nOf THOMAS CHALMERS, by W. GARDEN BLAIKIE,\n\nThe _Spectator_ says:--\n\n \u2018The most notable feature of Professor Blaikie\u2019s book--and none could\n be more commendable--is its perfect balance and proportion. In other\n words, justice is done equally to the private and to the public life\n of Chalmers, if possible greater justice than has been done by Mrs.\n Oliphant.\u2019\n\nThe _Scottish Congregationalist_ says:--\n\n \u2018No one can read the admirable and vivid sketch of his life which\n Dr. Blaikie has written without feeling admiration for the man, and\n gaining inspiration from his example.\u2019\n\n\nOf JAMES BOSWELL, by W. KEITH LEASK,\n\nThe _Spectator_ says:--\n\n \u2018This is one of the best volumes of the excellent \u201cFamous Scots\n Series,\u201d and one of the fairest and most discriminating biographies of\n Boswell that have ever appeared.\u2019\n\nThe _Dundee Advertiser_ says:--\n\n \u2018It is the admirable manner in which the very complexity of the man is\n indicated that makes W. Keith Leask\u2019s biography of him one of peculiar\n merit and interest.... It is not only a life of Boswell, but a picture\n of his time--vivid, faithful, impressive.\u2019\n\nThe _Morning Leader_ says:--\n\n \u2018Mr. W. K. Leask has approached the biographer of Johnson in the\n only possible way by which a really interesting book could have been\n arrived at--by way of the open mind.... The defence of Boswell in the\n concluding chapter of his delightful study is one of the finest and\n most convincing passages that have recently appeared in the field of\n British biography.\u2019\n\n\nOf TOBIAS SMOLLETT, by OLIPHANT SMEATON,\n\nThe _Dundee Courier_ says:--\n\n \u2018It is impossible to read the pages of this little work without being\n struck not only by its historical value, but by the fairness of its\n criticism.\u2019\n\nThe _Weekly Scotsman_ says:--\n\n \u2018The book is written in a crisp and lively style.... The picture of\n the great novelist is complete and lifelike. Not only does Mr. Smeaton\n give a scholarly sketch and estimate of Smollett\u2019s literary career, he\n constantly keeps the reader in conscious touch and sympathy with his\n personality, and produces a portrait of the man as a man which is not\n likely to be readily forgotten.\u2019\n\nThe _Newsagent and Booksellers\u2019 Review_ says:--\n\n \u2018Tobias Smollett was versatile enough to deserve a distinguished place\n in any gallery of gifted Scots, such as the one to which Mr. Smeaton\n has contributed this clever and lifelike portrait.\u2019\n\n\nOf FLETCHER OF SALTOUN, by W. G. T. OMOND,\n\nThe _Edinburgh Evening News_ says:--\n\n \u2018The writer has given us in brief compass the pith of what is known\n about an able and patriotic if somewhat dogmatic and impracticable\n Scotsman who lived in stormy times.... Mr. Omond describes, in\n a clear, terse, vigorous way, the constitution of the Old Scots\n Parliament, and the part taken by Fletcher as a public man in the\n stormy debates that took place prior to the union of the Parliaments\n in 1707. This part of the book gives an admirable summary of the state\n of Scottish politics and of the national feeling at an important\n period.\u2019\n\nThe _Leeds Mercury_ says:--\n\n \u2018Unmistakably the most interesting and complete story of the life of\n Fletcher of Saltoun that has yet appeared. Mr. Omond has had many\n facilities placed at his disposal, and of these he has made excellent\n use.\u2019\n\nThe _Speaker_ says:--\n\n \u2018Mr. Omond has told the story of Fletcher of Saltoun in this monograph\n with ability and judgment.\u2019\n\n\nOf THE BLACKWOOD GROUP, by Sir GEORGE DOUGLAS,\n\nThe _Scotsman_ says:--\n\n \u2018In brief compass, Sir George Douglas gives us skilfully blended\n together much pleasantly written biography and just and judicious\n criticism.\u2019\n\nThe _Weekly Citizen_ says:--\n\n \u2018It need not be said that to every one interested in the literature\n of the first half of the century, and especially to every Scotsman so\n interested, \u201cThe Blackwood Group\u201d is a phrase abounding in promise.\n And really Sir George Douglas fulfils the promise he tacitly makes in\n his title. He is intimately acquainted not only with the books of the\n different members of the \u201cgroup,\u201d but also with their environment,\n social and otherwise. Besides, he writes with sympathy as well as\n knowledge.\u2019\n\n\nOf NORMAN MACLEOD, by JOHN WELLWOOD,\n\nThe _Star_ says:--\n\n \u2018A worthy addition to the \u201cFamous Scots Series\u201d is that of Norman\n Macleod, the renowned minister of the Barony of Glasgow, and a man as\n typical of everything generous and broadminded in the State Church in\n Scotland as Thomas Guthrie was in the Free Churches. The biography\n is the work of John Wellwood, who has approached it with proper\n appreciation of the robustness of the subject.\u2019\n\nThe _Scots Pictorial_ says:--\n\n \u2018Its general picturesqueness is effective, while the criticism is\n eminently liberal and sound.\u2019\n\nThe _Daily Free Press_ says:--\n\n \u2018It is one of the great merits of Mr. Wellwood\u2019s book that it is\n wholly free from dulness. His attention once secured, the reader is\n carried irresistibly along till he has finished the whole of the\n fascinating story.\u2019\n\nThe _Daily Chronicle_ says:--\n\n \u2018Mr. Wellwood is in thorough sympathy with his hero, and has given us\n in this little volume a graphic and picturesque sketch of him.\u2019\n\n\nOf SIR WALTER SCOTT, by GEORGE SAINTSBURY,\n\nThe _Pall Mall Gazette_ says:--\n\n \u2018Mr. Saintsbury\u2019s miniature is a gem of its kind.... Mr. Saintsbury\u2019s\n critique of the Waverley Novels will, I venture to think, despite all\n that has been written upon them, discover fresh beauties for their\n admirers.\u2019\n\nThe _Morning Leader_ says:--\n\n \u2018A fresh and charming biography.\u2019\n\nThe _St. James\u2019s Gazette_ says:--\n\n \u2018Apart from Lockhart, we do not know any one who has given a better\n picture of Scott than Mr. Saintsbury, and there is no sounder and more\n comprehensive estimate of his work.\u2019\n\nThe _Scots Magazine_ says:--\n\n \u2018The little volume is bright, informative reading, and is a worthy\n addition to a capital and much-needed series.\u2019\n\n\nOf KIRKCALDY OF GRANGE, by LOUIS A. BARB\u00c9,\n\nThe _Scotsman_ says:--\n\n \u2018Mr. Barb\u00e9\u2019s sketch sticks close to the facts of his life, and these\n are sought out from the best sources and are arranged with much\n judgment, and on the whole with an impartial mind.\u2019\n\nThe _Glasgow Herald_ says:--\n\n \u2018A conscientious and thorough piece of work, showing wide and accurate\n knowledge.\u2019\n\nThe _Speaker_ says:--\n\n \u2018This scholarly monograph seeks to unravel the seeming contradictions\n of a great career, as well as to show that Kirkcaldy of Grange was a\n sincere patriot.\u2019\n\nThe _Bookseller_ says:--\n\n \u2018Mr. Barb\u00e9 has put together a very instructive and interesting account\n of his career.\u2019\n\n\nOf ROBERT FERGUSSON, by DR. A. B. GROSART,\n\nThe _Westminster Gazette_ says:--\n\n \u2018One of the most interesting of the \u201cFamous Scots\u201d Series is devoted\n to \u201cRobert Fergusson\u201d the poet, to whom \u201cthe greater Robert,\u201d as he\n freely acknowledged, was under so many obligations. Dr. Grosart is\n perhaps the best living authority on all that relates to the bard\n of \u201cThe Farmer\u2019s Ingle,\u201d and he gives many new facts and corrects a\n number of erroneous statements that have hitherto obtained currency\n respecting him. We have read it with genuine pleasure.\u2019\n\nThe _British Weekly_ says:--\n\n \u2018It is a creditable, useful, and painstaking book, a genuine\n contribution to Scottish literary history.\u2019\n\nThe _North British Daily Mail_ says:--\n\n \u2018The little volume is a thoroughly competent piece of work, and forms\n a valuable addition to an excellent series.\u2019\n\nThe _Weekly Scotsman_ says:--\n\n \u2018The book will be welcomed as a worthy addition to that wonderfully\n entertaining and instructive series of biographies, the \u201cFamous Scots.\u201d\n\n\nOf JAMES THOMSON, by WILLIAM BAYNE,\n\nThe _Daily News_ says:--\n\n \u2018A just appreciation of Thomson as poet and dramatist, and an\n interesting record of the conditions under which he rose to fame, as\n also of his friendships with the great ones of the eighteenth century.\u2019\n\n_Literature_ says:--\n\n \u2018The story of Thomson\u2019s claim to the disputed authorship of \u201cRule\n Britannia\u201d is sustained by his countryman with spirit, and in our\n judgment with success.\u2019\n\nThe _Publishers\u2019 Circular_ says:--\n\n \u2018The book is one which every lover of Thomson will welcome, and which\n students of poetry cannot well afford to neglect.\u2019\n\nThe _Spectator_ says:--\n\n \u2018This is one of the compactest and best written volumes of the useful\n series of biographies to which it belongs.\u2019\n\n\nOf MUNGO PARK, by T. BANKS MACLACHLAN,\n\nThe _Leeds Mercury_ says:--\n\n \u2018We owe to Mr. Maclachlan not only a charming life-story, if at\n times a pathetic one, but a vivid chapter in the romance of Africa.\n Geography has no more wonderful tale than that dealing with the\n unravelling of the mystery of the Niger.\u2019\n\nThe _Speaker_ says:--\n\n \u2018Mr. Maclachlan recounts with incisive vigour the story of Mungo\n Park\u2019s heroic wanderings and the services which he rendered to\n geographical research.\u2019\n\nThe _Kilmarnock Herald_ says:--\n\n \u2018It is a thrilling story, powerfully told, of one of Scotland\u2019s\n noblest sons.\u2019\n\nThe _Educational News_ says:--\n\n \u2018Mungo Park has his record here summarised in such a manner as to win,\n inform, and delight.\u2019\n\n\nOf DAVID HUME, by HENRY CALDERWOOD,\n\nThe _Speaker_ says:--\n\n \u2018The little book is a virile recruit of the \u201cFamous Scots Series.\u201d\u2019\n\n \u2018This monograph is both picturesque and critical.\u2019\n\nThe _New Age_ says:--\n\n \u2018To the many students of philosophy in Scotland a special interest\n will attach to Professor Calderwood\u2019s sketch of David Hume from the\n fact that it is the last piece of work done by its lamented author;\n and very pleasing it is to note the fairness and charity of the\n judgment passed by the most evangelical of philosophers upon the man\n who used to be denounced as the prophet of infidelity.\u2019\n\nThe _Scotsman_ says:--\n\n \u2018Fulfils admirably well the purpose of the writer, which was that of\n presenting in clear, fair, and concise lines Hume and his philosophy\n to the mind of his countrymen and of the world.\u2019\n\nThe _Publishers\u2019 Circular_ says:--\n\n \u2018This biography is well written, and it will no doubt be considered,\n as it really is, one of the best of the \u201cFamous Scots Series.\u201d\u2019\n\n\nOf WILLIAM DUNBAR, by OLIPHANT SMEATON,\n\nThe _Speaker_ says:--\n\n \u2018Mr. Smeaton looks narrowly into the characteristics of Dunbar\u2019s\n genius, and does well to insist on the almost Shakespearian range\n of his gifts. He contends that in elegy, as well as in satire and\n allegory, Dunbar\u2019s place in English literature is amongst the great\n masters of the craft of letters.\u2019\n\nThe _Glasgow Herald_ says:--\n\n \u2018This is a bright and picturesquely written monograph, presenting\n in readable form the results of the critical research undertaken by\n Laing, Schipper, and the other scholars who during the present century\n have done so much for the elucidation of the greatest of our early\n Scottish poets.\u2019\n\nThe _Bailie_ says:--\n\n \u2018A graphic and informed account not only of the man and his works, but\n of his immediate environment and of the times in which he lived.\u2019\n\nThe _Bookman_ says:--\n\n \u2018The book is an admirable biography, one of the liveliest and most\n readable in the series.\u2019\n\n\nOf SIR WILLIAM WALLACE, by Professor MURISON,\n\nThe _Speaker_ says:--\n\n \u2018Mr. Murison is to be congratulated on this little book. After much\n hard and discriminative labour he has pieced together by far the best,\n one might say the only rational and coherent, account of Wallace that\n exists.\u2019\n\nMr. William Wallace in the _Academy_ says:--\n\n \u2018Professor Murison has acquitted himself of his task like a patriot.\u2019\n\n \u2018Capital reading.\u2019\n\nThe _Daily News_ says:--\n\n \u2018A scholarly and impartial little volume, one of the best yet\n published in the \u201cFamous Scots Series.\u201d\u2019\n\nThe _Pall Mall Gazette_ says:--\n\n \u2018A bright little book which will be much relished north of the Tweed,\n and also among those Scottish exiles who are supposed to be pining\n away their lives south of it.\u2019\n\nThe _New Age_ says:--\n\n \u2018Anyhow, here, at least, we have his life-story--a most difficult\n tale to tell--recorded with a painstaking research and in a spirit of\n appreciative candour which leave almost nothing to be desired.\u2019\n\n\n Of ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON, by MARGARET MOYES BLACK,\n\nThe _Banffshire Journal_ says:--\n\n \u2018The portrait, drawn as it is by a loving hand, is absolutely\n photographic in its likeness, and the literary criticisms with which\n the book is pleasantly studded are alike careful and judicious, and\n with most of them the ordinary reader will cordially agree.\u2019\n\nThe _Bookman_ says:--\n\n \u2018This little book is sure to get a welcome.\u2019\n\nThe _Speaker_ says:--\n\n \u2018Sense and sensibility are in these pages, as well as knowledge and\n delicate discrimination.\u2019\n\nThe _Outlook_ says:--\n\n \u2018Certainly one of the most charming biographies we have ever\n come across. The writer has style, sympathy, distinction, and\n understanding. We were loth to put the book aside. Its one fault is\n that it is too short.\u2019\n\nThe _Daily Free Press_ says:--\n\n \u2018One of the most charming sketches--it is scarcely a biography--of a\n literary man that could be found has just been published as the latest\n number of the \u201cFamous Scots Series\u201d--\u201cR. Louis Stevenson,\u201d by Miss\n Black. The excellence of the little book lies in its artless charm, in\n its loose and easy style, in its author\u2019s evident love and delight in\n her subject.\u2019\n\n\nOf THOMAS REID, by Professor CAMPBELL FRASER,\n\nThe _North British Daily Mail_ says:--\n\n \u2018A model of sympathetic appreciation and of succinct and lucid\n exposition.\u2019\n\nThe _Scotsman_ says:--\n\n \u2018Professor Campbell Fraser\u2019s volume on Thomas Reid is one of the\n most able and valuable of an able and valuable series. He supplies\n what must be allowed to be a distinct want in our literature, in the\n shape of a brief, popular, and accessible biography of the founder\n of the so-called Scottish School of Philosophy, written with notable\n perspicuity and sympathy by one who has made a special study of the\n problems that engaged the mind of Reid.\u2019\n\nThe _Glasgow Herald_ says:--\n\n \u2018We do not know any volume of the \u201cFamous Scots Series\u201d that deserves\n or is likely to receive a heartier welcome from the educated public\n than this life and estimate of Reid by Professor Campbell Fraser. The\n writer is no amateur, but a past-master in the subject of Scottish\n philosophy, and it has evidently been a real pleasure to him to\n expiscate quite a number of new facts regarding the professional and\n private life of its best representative.\u2019\n\nThe _Pall Mall Gazette_ says:--\n\n \u2018The little work is of high excellence--comprehensive in view, dear in\n exposition, and exemplary in literary style.\u2019\n\nThe _Saturday Review_ says:--\n\n \u2018Mr. Campbell Fraser has added to the \u201cFamous Scots Series\u201d an\n excellent little book on Reid and his philosophy, dealing lucidly with\n the philosopher\u2019s relations with contemporary thinkers and with modern\n thought.\u2019\n\n\nOf POLLOK AND AYTOUN, by ROSALINE MASSON,\n\nThe _Spectator_ says:--\n\n \u2018One of the most artistically conceived and gracefully written of the\n series to which it belongs.\u2019\n\nThe _Glasgow Herald_ says:--\n\n \u2018The facts of the two lives are presented by Miss Masson with\n intelligence and spirit, and the volume will take a good place among\n the rest of the series.\u2019\n\n\nOf ADAM SMITH, by HECTOR C. MACPHERSON,\n\nThe _Speaker_ says:--\n\n \u2018This little book is written with brains and a degree of courage which\n is in keeping with its convictions. It has vision, too, and that\n counts for righteousness, if anywhere, in political economy.\u2019\n\nThe _Echo_ says:--\n\n \u2018Smith\u2019s life is briefly and clearly told, and there is a good deal\n of independent criticism interspersed amidst the chapters on the\n philosopher\u2019s two principal treatises. Mr. Macpherson\u2019s analysis of\n Smith\u2019s economic teaching makes excellent reading.\u2019\n\nThe _Scots Pictorial_ says:--\n\n \u2018One of the best of an admirable series.\u2019\n\nMr. Herbert Spencer says:--\n\n \u2018I have learned much from your sketch of Adam Smith\u2019s life and\n work. It presents the essential facts in a lucid and interesting\n way. Especially am I glad to see that you have insisted upon the\n individualistic character of his teaching. It is well that his\n authority on the side of individualism should be put forward in these\n days of rampant Socialism, when the great mass of legislative measures\n extend public agency and restrict private agency; the advocates\n of such measures being blind to the fact that by small steps they\n are bringing about a state in which the citizen will have lost all\n freedom.\u2019\n\nThe _Glasgow Herald_ says:--\n\n \u2018A sound and able piece of work, and contains a fair and discerning\n estimate of Smith in his essential character as the author of the\n doctrine of Free Trade, and consequently of the modern science of\n economics.\u2019\n\n\nOf ANDREW MELVILLE, by WILLIAM MORISON,\n\nThe _Spectator_ says:--\n\n \u2018The story is well told, and it takes one through a somewhat obscure\n period with which it is well to be acquainted. No better guide could\n be found than Mr. Morison.\u2019\n\nThe _Speaker_ says:--\n\n \u2018The great aspects of his career as Principal of Glasgow and then of\n St. Andrews--it has been said that the European renown of the Scottish\n Universities began with Melville--are admirably discussed in this\n virile, and at the same time critical monograph.\u2019\n\nThe _North British Daily Mail_ says:--\n\n \u2018Mr. Morison outlines the main facts of Melville\u2019s life-work with\n singular lucidity and point. He displays a full and accurate knowledge\n of the ecclesiastical history of the period, and his judgments are\n invariably sound. Altogether the book is one of the best of the\n series.\u2019\n\nThe _British Weekly_ says:--\n\n \u2018Mr. Morison writes with full knowledge of Scottish history, and also\n with what is equally important, perfect sympathy with the strong men\n who made it.\u2019\n\nThe _Academy_ says:--\n\n \u2018Mr. Morison has told Melville\u2019s story with a care for accurate\n history.\u2019\n\n\nOf JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER, by E. S. HALDANE,\n\nThe _Scotsman_ says:--\n\n \u2018Ferrier the man, and even Ferrier the professor, Miss Haldane brings\n near to us, an attractive and interesting figure.\u2019\n\nThe _Pall Mall Gazette_ says:--\n\n \u2018His splendid and transcendental thought and fine eloquence were so\n inspiring and stimulating, and his personal charm was so fascinating,\n that a study of the man must engage the sympathies of every\n student. The author, who is already known for admirable work in the\n philosophical field, has written an excellent exposition of Ferrier\u2019s\n views.\u2019\n\n\nOf KING ROBERT THE BRUCE, by Professor MURISON,\n\nThe _Morning Leader_ says:--\n\n \u2018Professor Murison has given us a book for which not only Scots, but\n every man who can appreciate a record of great days worthily told will\n be grateful.\u2019\n\nThe _Aberdeen Journal_ says:--\n\n \u2018The story of Bruce is brilliantly told in clear and flexible\n language, which draws the reader on with the interest of a novel.\n Professor Murison is a most impartial and thoroughly reliable critic,\n and may be followed with confidence by all who desire a truthful and\n unprejudiced picture of this greatest of the Scots.\u2019\n\nThe _Leeds Mercury_ says:--\n\n \u2018A worthy, as it is a necessary, addition to an admirable series.\u2019\n\nThe _Speaker_ says:--\n\n \u2018He has sifted for himself State records, official papers, old\n chronicles, and has come to his own conclusions without the aid of\n modern historians. Therein lies the value of the book: it is a fresh,\n independent, critical estimate of a man who emancipated Scotland from\n a thraldom which was almost worse than death. Bruce\u2019s career from\n first to last is described in these pages with uncompromised fidelity,\n and no attempt is made to gloss over the faults of a masterful nature.\u2019\n\nThe _Morning Leader_ says:--\n\n \u2018Professor Murison has given us a book for which not only Scots, but\n every man who can appreciate a record of great days worthily told,\n will be grateful.\u2019\n\n\n Of JAMES HOGG, THE ETTRICK SHEPHERD, by Sir GEORGE DOUGLAS,\n\nThe _Scotsman_ says:--\n\n \u2018Sir George Douglas has contributed a gracefully written and well-knit\n biography of the Ettrick Shepherd to the \u201cFamous Scots\u201d Series. It\n follows in a spirit of kindly criticism the steps of Hogg through the\n shadow and sunshine, the failures and successes of his career, from\n the hillsides of Yarrow and Ettrick to the more slippery places of the\n world of literature, and back again to the solitude of the forest; and\n it gives us judicious and sympathetic appreciations of his work in\n prose and in verse, much of it already fallen into unmerited neglect.\u2019\n\nThe _New Age_ says:--\n\n \u2018A capital biography--full, careful, discriminating, and sympathetic.\u2019\n\nThe _Daily News_ says:--\n\n \u2018The story of James Hogg\u2019s manly, honourable battle with poverty,\n and of his literary achievement, is excellently told by Sir George\n Douglas.\u2019\n\nThe _Expository Times_ says:--\n\n \u2018The book is accurate, and must have cost research, but it is written\n in a pleasant gossipy manner, quite as if Hogg had flung the flavour\n of Hogg\u2019s writings over his biographer.\u2019\n\n_Saint Andrew_ says:--\n\n \u2018We have no hesitation in saying that this valuable and interesting\n volume will be welcomed by the Scots people as heartily as any that\n have preceded it.\u2019\n\n\nOf THOMAS CAMPBELL, by J. CUTHBERT HADDEN,\n\nThe _Scotsman_ says:--\n\n \u2018A very useful, compact, well-digested, and well-written account of\n Campbell\u2019s career and literary labours.\u2019\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber\u2019s Note\n\n\nIn the Daily Chronicle\u2019s review of SIR JAMES YOUNG SIMPSON, by Eve\nBlantyre Simpson, \u201csuperflous\u201d has been changed to \u201csuperfluous\u201d.","title":"George Buchanan","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":36809}